






1 


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MAP OF THE COUNTRY DESCRIBE© IN “ THE OCTOPUS.* 


The Epic of the Wheat 


THE OCTOPUS 

A STORY OF CALIFORNIA 

BY 

FRANK NORRIS 



DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

NEW YORK GARDEN CITY 


1914 


Copyright, 1901, 
by 

Doubleday, Page & Co. 


// 



» e 


THE COUNTRY LITE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y, 


DEDICATED 


? O 


MY WIFE 






PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL 


^ Magnus Derrick (the “ Governor”), proprietor of the Los Muertos 
Rancho. 

Annie Derrick, wife of Magnus Derrick. 

^ Lyman Derrick, i 


sons of Magnus Derrick. 


^ Harran Derrick, 



’ >■ friends and neighbors of Magnus Derrick. 


Annixter, proprietor of the Quien Sabe Rancho. 

Hilma Tree, a dairy girl on Annixter’s ranch. 

Genslinger, editor of the Bonneville “ Mercury,” the railroad organ. 
S. Behrman, representative of the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad 
■ Presley, a protdgd of Magnus Derrick. ^ 

Vanamee, a sheep herder and range rider. 

Ang£le Varian. 

Father Sarria, a Mission priest. 

'Dyke, a black-listed railroad engineer. 

Mrs. Dyke, Dyke’s mother. 

Sidney Dyke, Dyke’s daughter. 

Caraher, a saloon keeper, 

Hooven, a tenant of Derrick. 

Mrs. Hooven, his wife. 

Minna Hooven, his daughter, 

Cedarquist, a manufacturer and shipbuilder. 

Mrs. Cedarquist, his wife. 

Garnett, 


Dabney, 
Keast, 
Chattkrn, . 


• ranchers of the San Joaquin Valley. 


The Trilogy of The Epic of the Wheat will include the 
following novels; 

The Octopus, a Story of California. 

The Pit, a Story of Chicago. 

The Wolf, a Story of Europe. 

These novels, while forming a series, will be in no way 
connected with each other save only in their relation to 
(i) the production, (2) the distribution, (3) the consump- 
tion of American wheat. When complete, they will form 
the story of a crop of wheat from the time of its sowing 
as seed in California to the time of its consumption as 
bread in a village of Western Europe. 

The first novel, “ The Octopus,” deals with the war be- 
tween the wheat grower and the Railroad Trust; the 
second, The Pit,” will be the fictitious narrative of a 
” deal ” in the Chicago wheat pit; while the third, “ The 
Wolf,” will probably have for its pivotal episode the re- 
lieving of a famine in an Old World community. 

F. N. 


Roselle, New Jersey, 
Decembtr 15, igcx>. 


THE OCTOPUS 


■eoan ( 

I 

Just after passing Caraher's saloon, on the County 
Road that ran south from Bonneville, and that divided 
the Broderson ranch from that of Los Muertos, Presley 
was suddenly aware of the faint and prolonged blowing 
of a steam whistle that he knew must come from the rail- 
road shops near the depot at Bonneville. In starting 
out from the ranch house that morning, he had forgotten 
his watch, and was now perplexed to know whether the 
whistle was blowing for twelve or for one o’clock. He 
hoped the former. Early that morning he had decided 
to make a long excursion through the neighbouring 
country, partly on foot and partly on his bicycle, and now 
noon was come already, and as yet he had hardly started. 
As he was leaving the house after breakfast, Mrs. Der- 
rick had asked him to go for the mail at Bonneville, and 
he had not been able to refuse. 

He took a firmer hold of the cork grips of his handle- 
bars — the road being in a wretched condition after the 
recent hauling of the crop — ^and quickened his pace. 
He told himself that, no matter what the time was, he 
would not stop for luncheon at the ranch house, but 
would push on to Guadalajara and have a Spanish dinner 
at Solotari's, as he had originally planned. 


4 


The Octopus 

There had not been much of a crop to haul that year. 
Half of the wheat on the Broderson ranch had failed 
entirely, and Derrick himself had hardly raised more 
than enough to supply seed for the winter’s sowing. But 
such little hauling as there had been had reduced the 
roads thereabouts to a lamentable condition, and, during 
the dry season of the past few months, the layer of dust 
had deepened and thickened to such an extent that more 
than once Presley was obliged to dismount and trudge 
along on foot, pushing his bicycle in front of him. 

It was the last half of September, the very end of the 
dry season, and all Tulare County, all the vast reaches of 
the San Joaquin Valley — in fact all South Central Cali- 
fornia, was bone dry, parched, and baked and crisped 
after four months of cloudless weather, when the day 
seemed always at noon, and the sun blazed white hot 
over the valley from the Coast Range in the west to the 
foothills of the Sierras in the east. 

As Presley drew near to the point where what was 
known as the Lower Road struck off through the 
Rancho de Los Muertos, leading on to Guadalajara, he 
came upon one of the county watering-tanks, a great, 
iron-hooped tower of wood, straddling clumsily on its 
four uprights by the roadside. Since the day of its com- 
pletion, the storekeepers and retailers of Bonneville had 
painted their advertisements upon it. It was a land- 
mark. In that reach of level fields, the white letters upon 
it could be read for miles. A watering-trough stood 
near by, and, as he was very thirsty, Presley resolved to 
stop for a moment to get a drink. 

He drew abreast of the tank and halted there, leaning 
his bicycle against the fence. A couple of men in white 
overalls were repainting the surface of the tank, seated 
on swinging platforms that hung by hooks from the roof. 
They were painting a sign — ^an advertisement. It was 


5 


A Story of California 

all but finished and read, ** S. Behrman, Real Estate, 
Mortgages, Main Street, Bonneville, Opposite the Post 
Office/' On the horse-trough that stood in the shadow 
of the tank was another freshly painted inscription: 
** S. Behrman Has Something To Say To You/* 

As Presley straightened up after drinking from the 
faucet at one end of the horse-trough, the watering-cart 
itself laboured into view around the turn of the Lower 
Road. Two mules and two horses, white with dust, 
strained leisurely in the traces, moving at a snail’s pace, 
their limp ears marking the time; while perched high 
upon the seat, under a yellow cotton wagon umbrella, 
Presley recognised Hooven, one of Derrick’s tenants, 
a German, whom every one called Bismarck,” an excit- 
able little man with a perpetual grievance and an endless 
flow of broken English. 

Hello, Bismarck,” said Presley, as Hooven brought 
his team to a standstill by the tank, preparatory to re- 
filling. 

Yoost der men I look for, Mist’r Praicely,” cried the 
other, twisting the reins around the brake. Yoost one 
minute, you wait, hey? I wanta talk mit you.” 

Presley was impatient to be on his way again. A 
little more time wasted, and the day would be lost. He 
had nothing to do with the management of the ranch, 
and if Hooven wanted any advice from him, it was so 
much breath wasted. These uncouth brutes of farm- 
hands and petty ranchers, grimed with the soil they 
worked upon, were odious to him beyond words. Never 
could he feel in sympathy with them, nor with their lives, 
their ways, their marriages, deaths, bickerings, and all 
the monotonous round of their sordid existence. 

** Well, you must be quick about it, Bismarck,” he an- 
swered sharply. ** I’m late for dinner, as it is.” 

“ Sob* now. Two minuten, und I be mit you,” He 


6 


The Octopus 

f . 

drew down the overhanging spout of the tanlc' to the 
vent in the circumference of the cart and pulled the chain 
that let out the water. Then he climbed down from the 
seat, jumping from the tire of the wheel, and taking Pres- 
ley by the arm led him a few steps down the road. 

“ Say,” he began. ** Say, I want to hef some conver- 
zations mit you. Yoost der men I want to see. Say, 
Caraher, he tole me dis morgen — say, he tole me Mist’r 
Derrick go wun to farm der whole demn rench hisseluf der 
next yahr. No more tenants. Say, Caraher, he tole me 
all der tenants get der sach; Mist’r Derrick gowun to 
work der whole demn rench hisseluf, hey? Me, I get der 
sach alzoh, hey? You hef hear about dose ting? Say, 
me, I hef on der ranch been sieben yahr — seven yahr. 
Do I alzoh ” 

You'll have to see Derrick himself or Harran about 
that, Bismarck,” interrupted Presley, trying to draw 
away. ** That's something outside of me entirely.” 

But Hooven was not to be put off. No doubt he had 
been meditating his speech all the morning, formulating 
his words, preparing his phrases. 

“ Say, no, no,” he continued. Me, I wanta stay bei 
der place; seven yahr I hef stay. Mist'r Derrick, he 
doand want dot I should be ge-sacked. Who, den, will 
der ditch ge-tend? Say, you tell 'um Bismarck hef gotta 
sure stay bei der place. Say, you hef der pull mit der 
Governor. You speak der gut word for me.” 

Harran is the man that has the pull with his father, 
Bismarck,” answered Presley. ** You get Harran to 
speak for you, and you're all right.” 

“ Sieben yahr I hef stay,” protested Hooven, and 
who will der ditch ge-tend, und alle dem cettles drive?” 

“ Well, Harran's your man,” answered Presley, pre- 
paring to mount his bicycle. 

" Say, you hef hear about dose ting? ” 


A Story of California 7 

#■ 

** I don’t hear about anything, Bismarck. I don’t know 
the first thing about how the ranch is run.” 

** Und der pipe-line ge-mend” Hooven burst out, sud- 
denly remembering a forgotten argument. He waved 
an arm. Ach, der pipe-line bei der Mission Greek, 
und der waater-hole for dose cettles. Say, he doand doo 
ut himselluf, berhaps, I doand tink.” 

“ Well, talk to Harran about it.” 

Say, he doand farm der whole demn rench bei his- 
seluf. Me, I gotta stay.” 

But on a sudden the water in the cart gushed over the 
sides from the vent in the top with a smart sound of 
splashing. Hooven was forced to turn his attention to 
it. Presley got his wheel under way. 

I hef some converzations mit Herran,” Hooven 
called after him. He doand doo ut bei hisseluf, den, 
Mist’r Derrick; ach, no. I stay bei der rench to drive 
dose cettles.” 

He climbed back to his seat under the wagon um- 
brella, and, as he started his team again with great cracks 
of his long whip, turned to the painters still at work 
upon the sign and declared with some defiance: 

Sieben yahr; yais, sir, seiben yahr I hef been on dis 
rench. Git oop, you mule you, hoop!” 

Meanwhile Presley had turned into the Lower Road. 
He was now on Derrick’s land, division No. i, or, as it 
was called, the Home ranch, of the great Los Muertos 
Rancho. The road was better here, the dust laid after 
the passage of Hooven’s watering-cart, and, in a few 
minutes, he had come to the ranch house itself, with its 
white picket fence, its few flower beds, and grove of 
eucalyptus trees. On the lawn at the side of the house, 
he saw Harran in the act of setting out the automatic 
sprinkler. In the shade of the house, by the porch, were 
two or three of the greyhounds, part of the pack that 


8 


The Octopus 

were used to hunt down jack-rabbits, and Godfrey, Har- 
ran’s prize deerhound. 

Presley wheeled up the driveway and met Harran by 
the horse-block. Harran was Magnus Derrick’s young- 
est son, a very well-looking young fellow of twenty- 
three or twenty-five. He had the fine carriage that 
marked his father, and still further resembled him in that 
he had the Derrick nose — hawk-like and prominent, such 
as one sees in the later portraits of the Duke of Welling- 
ton. Pie was blond, and incessant exposure to the sun 
had, instead of tanning him brown, merely heightened 
the colour of his cheeks. His yellow hair had a tendency 
to curl in a forward direction, just in front of the ears. 

Beside him, Presley made the sharpest of contrasts. 
Presley seemed to have come of a mixed origin; ap- 
peared to have a nature more composite, a temperament 
more complex. Unlike Harran Derrick, he seemed more 
of a character than a type. The sun had browned his 
face till it was almost swarthy. Plis eyes were a dark 
brown, and his forehead was the forehead of the intel- 
lectual, wide and high, with a certain unmistakable lift 
about it that argued education, not only of himself, but 
of his people before him. The impression conveyed by 
‘ his mouth and chin was that of a delicate and highly sen- 
sitive nature, the lips thin and loosely shut together, the 
chin small and rather receding. One guessed that 
Presley’s refinement had been gained only by a certain 
loss of strength. One expected to find him nervous, 
introspective, to discover that his mental life was not at 
all the result of impressions and sensations that came to 
him from without, but rather of thoughts and reflections 
germinating from within. Though morbidly sensitive 
to changes in his physical surroundings, he would be 
slow to act upon such sensations, would not prove im- 
pulsive, not because he was sluggish, but because he was 


9 


A Story of California 

merely irresolute. It could be foreseen that morally he 
was of that sort who avoid evil through good taste, lack 
of decision, and want of opportunity. His temperament 
was that of the poet; when he told himself he had been 
thinking, he deceived himself. He had, on such occa- 
sions, been only brooding. 

Some eighteen months before this time, he had been 
threatened with consumption, and, taking advantage of 
a standing invitation on the part of Magnus Derrick, had 
come to stay in the dry, even climate of the San Joaquin 
for an indefinite length of time. He was thirty years old, 
and had graduated and post-graduated with high hon- 
ours from an Eastern college, where he had devoted 
himself to a passionate study of literature, and, more 
especially, of poetry. 

It was his insatiable ambition to write verse. But up 
to this time, his work had been fugitive, ephemeral, a note 
here and there, heard, appreciated, and forgotten. He 
was in search of a subject; something magnificent, he did 
not know exactly what; some vast, tremendous theme, 
heroic, terrible, to be unrolled in all the thundering pro- 
gression of hexameters. 

But whatever he wrote, and in whatever fashion, Pres- 
ley was determined that his poem should be of the West, 
that world’s frontier of Romance, where a new race, a 
new people — hardy, brave, and passionate — ^were build- 
ing an empire; where the tumultuous life ran like fire 
from dawn to dark, and from dark to dawn again, primi- 
tive, brutal, honest, and without fear. Something (to 
his idea not much) had been done to catch at that life in 
passing, but its poet had not yet arisen. The few spo- 
radic attempts, thus he told himself, had only touched 
the keynote. He strove for the diapason, the great song 
that should embrace in itself a whole epoch, a complete 
era, the voice of an entire people, wherein all people 


lO 


The Octopus 


should be included — they and their legends, their folk 
lore, their fightings, their loves and their lusts, their 
blunt, grim humour, their stoicism under stress, their 
adventures, their treasures found in a day and gambled 
in a night, their direct, crude speech, their generosity and 
cruelty, their heroism and bestiality, their religion and 
profanity, their self-sacrifice and obscenity — a true and 
fearless setting forth of a passing phase of history, un- 
compromising, sincere ; each group in its proper environ- 
ment; the valley, the plain, and the mountain; the ranch, 
the range, and the mine — all this, all the traits and types 
of every community from the Dakotas to the Mexicos, 
from Winnipeg to Guadalupe, gathered together, swept 
together, welded and riven together in one single, 
mighty song, the Song of the West. That was what he 
dreamed, while things without names — thoughts for 
which no man had yet invented words, terrible formless 
shapes, vague figures, colossal, monstrous, distorted — 
whirled at a gallop through his imagination. 

As Harran came up, Presley reached down into the 
pouches of the sun-bleached shooting coat he wore and 
drew out and handed him the packet of letters and 
papers. 

“ Here’s the mail. I think I shall go on.” 

''But dinner is ready,” said Harran; "we are just 
sitting down.” 

Presley shook his head. " No, Pm in a hurry. Per- 
haps I shall have something to eat at Guadalajara. I 
shall be gone all day.” 

He delayed a few moments longer, tightening a loose 
nut on his forward wheel, while Harran, recognising his 
father’s handwriting on one of the envelopes, slit it open 
and cast his eye rapidly over its pages. 

" The Governor is coming home,” he exclaimed, " to- 
morrow morning on the early train; wants me to meet 


II 


A Story of California 

him with the team at Guadalajara; and/* he cried be- 
tween his clenched teeth, as he continued to read, 
weVe lost the case/^ 

What case? Oh, in the matter of rates? 

Harran nodded, his eyes flashing, his face growing 
suddenly scarlet. 

** Ulsteen gave his decision yesterday,’^ he continued, 
reading from his father’s letter. “ He holds, Ulsteen 
does, that ‘ grain rates as low as the new figure would 
amount to confiscation of property, and that, on such a 
basis, the railroad could not be operated at a legitimate 
profit. As he is powerless to legislate in the matter, he 
can only put the rates back at what they originally were 
before the commissioners made the cut, and it is so or- 
dered.’ That’s our friend S. Behrman again,” added 
Harran, grinding his teeth. ** He was up in the city the 
whole of the time the new schedule was being drawn, and 
he and Ulsteen and the Railroad Commission were as 
thick as thieves. He has been up there all this last week, 
too, doing the railroad’s dirty work, and backing Ulsteen 
up. * Legitimate profit, legitimate profit,’ ” he broke 
out. ** Can we raise wheat at a legitimate profit with a 
tariff of four dollars a ton for moving it two hundred 
miles to tide-water, with wheat at eighty-seven cents? 
Why not hold us up with a gun in our faces, and say, 
' hands up,’ and be done with it ? ” 

He dug his boot-heel into the ground and turned away 
to the house abruptly, cursing beneath his breath. 

** By the way,” Presley called after him, ** Hooven 
wants to see you. He asked me about this idea of the 
Governor’s of getting along without the tenants this 
year. Hooven wants to stay to tend the ditch and look 
after the stock. I told him to see you.” 

Harran, his mind full of other things, nodded to say 
he understood. Presley only waited till he had disap- 


1 2 The Octopus 

peared indoors, so that he might not seem too indifferent 
to his trouble; then, remounting, struck at once into a 
brisk pace, and, turning out from the carriage gate, held 
on swiftly down the Lower Road, going in the direction 
of Guadalajara. These matters, these eternal fierce 
bickerings between the farmers of the San Joaquin and 
the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad irritated him and 
wearied him. He cared for none of these things. They 
did not belong to his world. In the picture of that huge 
romantic West that he saw in his imagination, these 
dissensions made the one note of harsh colour that re- 
fused to enter into the great scheme of harmony. It 
was material, sordid, deadly commonplace. But, how- 
ever he strove to shut his eyes to it or his ears to it, the 
thing persisted and persisted. The romance seemed 
complete up to that point. There it broke, there it 
failed, there it became realism, grim, unlovely, unyield- 
ing. To be true — and it was the first article of his creed 
to be unflinchingly true — he could not ignore it. All the 
noble poetry of the ranch — the valley — seemed in his 
mind to be marred and disfigured by the presence of 
certain immovable facts. Just what he wanted, Presley 
hardly knew. On one hand, it was his ambition to 
portray life as he saw it — directly, frankly, and through 
no medium of personality or temperament. But, on the 
other hand, as well, he wished to see everything through 
a rose-coloured mist — a mist that dulled all harsh out- 
lines, all crude and violent colours. He told himself 
that, as a part of the people, he loved the people and 
sympathised with their hopes and fears, and joys and 
griefs ; and yet Hooven, grimy and perspiring, with his 
perpetual grievance and his contracted horizon, only re- 
volted him. He had set himself the task of giving true, 
absolutely true, poetical expression to the life of the 
ranch, and yet, again and again, he brought up against 


A Story of California 13 

the railroad, that stubborn iron barrier against which 
his romance shattered itself to froth and disintegrated, 
flying spume. His heart went out to the people, and his 
groping hand met that of a slovenly little Dutchman, 
whom it was impossible to consider seriously. He 
searched for the True Romance, and, in the end, found 
grain rates and unjust freight tariffs. 

But the stuff is here” he muttered, as he sent his 
wheel rumbling across the bridge over Broderson 
Creek. The romance, the real romance, is here some- 
where. ril get hold of it yet.” 

He shot a glance about him as if in search of the in- 
spiration. By now he was not quite half way across the 
northern and narrowest corner of Los Muertos, at this 
point some eight miles wide. He was still on the Home 
ranch. A few miles to the south he could just make out 
the line of wire fence that separated it from the third di- 
vision ; and to the north, seen faint and blue through the 
haze and shimmer of the noon sun, a long file of tele- 
graph poles showed the line of the railroad and marked 
Derrick’s northeast boundary. The road over which 
Presley was travelling ran almost diametrically straight. 
In front of him, but at a great distance, he could make 
out the giant live-oak and the red roof of Hooven's barn 
that stood near it. 

All about him the country was flat. In all directions 
he could see for miles. The harvest was just over. 
Nothing but stubble remained on the ground. With the 
one exception of the live-oak by Hooven’s place, there 
was nothing green in sight. The wheat stubble was of 
a dirty yellow; the ground, parched, cracked, and dry, 
of a cheerless brown. By the roadside the dust lay thick 
and grey, and, on either hand, stretching on toward the 
horizon, losing itself in a mere smudge in the distance, 
ran the illimitable parallels of the wire fence, si And that 


14 The Octopus 

was all; that and the burnt-out blue of the sky and the 
steady shimmer of the heat. 

The silence was infinite. After the harvest, small 
though that harvest had been, the ranches seemed 
asleep. It was as though the earth, after its period of 
reproduction, its pains of labour, had been delivered of 
the fruit of its loins, and now slept the sleep of exhaus- 
tion. 

It was the period between seasons, when nothing was 
being done, when the natural forces seemed to hang 
suspended. There was no rain, there was no wind, 
there was no growth, no life; the very stubble had no 
force even to rot. The sun alone moved. 

Toward two o^clock, Presley reached Hooven's 
place, two or three grimy frame buildings, infested with 
a swarm of dogs. A hog or two wandered aimlessly 
about. Under a shed by the barn, a broken-down seeder 
lay rusting to its ruin. But overhead, a mammoth live- 
oak, the largest tree in all the country-side, towered 
superb and magnificent. Grey bunches of mistletoe and 
festoons of trailing moss hung from its bark. From its 
lowest branch hung Hooven's meat-safe, a square box, 
faced with wire screens. 

What gave a special interest to Hooven's was the fact 
that here was the intersection of the Lower Road and 
Derrick’s main irrigating ditch, a vast trench not yet 
completed, which he and Annixter, who worked the 
Quien Sabe ranch, were jointly constructing. It ran di- 
rectly across the road and at right angles to it, and lay a 
deep groove in the field between Hooven’s and the town 
of Guadalajara, some three miles farther on. Besides 
this, the ditch was a natural boundary between two di- 
visions of the Los Muertos ranch, the first and fourth. 

Presley now had the choice of two routes. His ob- 
jective point was the spring at the headwaters of Broder- 


IS 


A Story of California 

son Creek, in the hills on the eastern side of the Quien 
Sabe ranch. The trail afforded him a short cut thither- 
ward. As he passed the house, Mrs. Hooven came to 
the door, her little daughter Hilda, dressed in a boy's 
overalls and clumsy boots, at her skirts. Minna, her 
oldest daughter, a very pretty girl, whose love affairs 
were continually the talk of all Los Muertos, was visible 
through a window of the house, busy at the week’s 
washing. Mrs. Hooven was a faded, colourless woman, 
middle-aged and commonplace, and offering not the 
least characteristic that would distinguish her from a 
thousand other women of her class and kind. She 
nodded to Presley, watching him with a stolid gaze from 
under her arm, which she held across her forehead to 
shade her eyes. 

But now Presley exerted himself in good earnest. 
His bicycle flew. He resolved that after all he would go 
to Guadalajara. He crossed the bridge over the irrigat- 
ing ditch with a brusque spurt of hollow sound, and shot 
forward down the last stretch of the Lower Road that 
yet intervened between Hooven’s and the town. He was 
on the fourth division of the ranch now, the only one 
whereon the wheat had been successful, no doubt be- 
cause of the Little Mission Creek that ran through it. 
But he no longer occupied himself with the landscape. 
His only concern was to get on as fast as possible. He 
had looked forward to spending nearly the whole day on 
the crest of the wooded hills in the northern corner of 
the Quien Sabe ranch, reading, idling, smoking his pipe. 
But now he would do well if he arrived there by the mid- 
dle of the afternoon. In a few moments he had reached 
the line fence that marked the limits of the ranch. Here 
were the railroad tracks, and just beyond — a huddled 
mass of roofs, with here and there an adobe house on its 
outskirts — the little town of Guadalajara. Nearer at 


i6 


The Octopus 


hand, and directly in front of Presley, were the freight 
and passenger depots of the P. and S. W., painted in the 
grey and white, which seemed to be the official colours 
of all the buildings owned by the corporation. The sta- 
tion was deserted. No trains passed at this hour. From 
the direction of the ticket window, Presley heard the 
unsteady chittering of the telegraph key. In the shadow 
of one of the baggage trucks upon the platform, the 
great yellow cat that belonged to the agent dozed com- 
placently, her paws tucked under her body. Three flat 
cars, loaded with bright-painted farming machines, 
were on the siding above the station, while, on the 
switch below, a huge freight engine that lacked its cow- 
catcher sat back upon its monstrous driving-wheels, 
motionless, solid, drawing long breaths that were punc- 
tuated by the subdued sound of its steam-pump clicking 
at exact intervals. 

But evidently it had been decreed that Presley should 
be stopped at every point of his ride that day, for, as he 
was pushing his bicycle across the tracks, he was sur- 
prised to hear his name called. Hello, there, Mr. 
Presley. What’s the good word ? ” 

Presley looked up quickly, and saw Dyke, the engi- 
neer, leaning on his folded arms from the cab window of 
the freight engine. But at the prospect of this further 
delay, Presley was less troubled. Dyke and he were well 
acquainted and the best of friends. The picturesqueness 
of the engineer’s life was always attractive to Presley, 
and more than once he had ridden on Dyke’s engine 
between Guadalajara and Bonneville. Once, even, he 
had made the entire run between the latter town and 
San Francisco in the cab. 

Dyke’s home was in Guadalajara. He lived in one of 
the remodelled ’dobe cottages, where his mother kept 
house for him. His wife had died some five years before 


17 


A Story of California 

this time, leaving him a little daughter, Sidney, to bring 
up as best he could. Dyke himself was a heavy built, 
well-looking fellow, nearly twice the weight of Presley, 
with great shoulders and massive, hairy arms, and a 
tremendous, rumbling voice. 

“ Hello, old man,” answered Presley, coming up to 
the engine. What are you doing about here at this 
time of day? I thought you were on the night service 
this month.” 

We’ve changed about a bit,” answered the other. 

Come up here and sit down, and get out of the sun. 
They’ve held us here to wait orders,” he explained, as 
Presley, after leaning his bicycle against the tender, 
climbed to the fireman’s seat of worn green leather. 
“ They are changing the run of one of the crack passen- 
ger engines down below, and are sending her up to 
Fresno. There was a smash of some kind on the Bakers- 
field division, and she’s to hell and gone behind her time. 
I suppose when she comes, she’ll come a-humming. It 
will be stand clear and an open track all the way to 
Fresno. They have held me here to let her go by.” 

He took his pipe, an old T. D. clay, but coloured to a 
beautiful shiny black, from the pocket of his jumper and 
filled and lit it. 

'' Well, I don’t suppose you object to being held here,” 
observed Presley. ‘‘ Gives you a chance to visit your 
mother and the little girl.” 

“ And precisely they choose this day to go up to Sac- 
ramento,” answered Dyke. ''Just my luck. Went up 
to visit my brother’s people. By the way, my brother 
may come down here — locate here, I mean — ^and go into 
the hop-raising business. He’s got an option on five 
hundred acres just back of the town here. He says 
there’s going to be money in hops. I don’t know; may- 
be I’ll go in with him.” 


1 8 The Octopus 

** Why, what’s the matter with railroading? ” 

Dyke drew a couple of puffs on his pipe, and fixed 
Presley with a glance. 

There’s this the matter with it,” he said ; ** I’m 
fired.” 

“ Fired ! You ! ” exclaimed Presley, turning abruptly 
toward him. 

'' That’s what I’m telling you,” returned Dyke 
grimly. 

You don’t mean it. Why, what for. Dyke ? ” 

** Now, you tell me what for,” growled the other sav- 
agely. Boy and man. I’ve worked for the P. and S. W. 
for over ten years, and never one yelp of a complaint 
did I ever hear from them. They know damn well 
they’ve not got a steadier man on the road. And more 
than that, more than that, I don’t belong to the Brother- 
hood. And when the strike came along, I stood by them 
— stood by the company. You know that. And you 
know, and they know, that at Sacramento that time, I 
ran my train according to schedule, with a gun in each 
hand, never knowing when I was going over a mined 
culvert, and there was talk of giving me a gold watch at 
the time. To hell with their gold watches ! I want or- 
dinary justice and fair treatment. And now, when hard 
times come along, and they are cutting wages, what do 
they do ? Do they make any discrimination in my case ? 
Do they remember the man that stood by them and 
risked his life in their service? No. They cut my pay 
down just as off-hand as they do the pay of any dirty 
little wiper in the yard. Cut me along with — listen to 
this — cut me along with men that they had black-listed; 
strikers that they took back because they were short of 
hands.” He drew fiercely on his pipe. “ I went to them, 
yes, I did; I went to the General Office, and ate dirt. I 
told them I was a family man, and that I didn’t see how 


19 


A Story of California 

I was going to get along on the new scale, and I re- 
minded them of my service during the strike. The swine 
told me that it wouldn’t be fair to discriminate in favour 
of one man, and that the cut must apply to all their em- 
ployees alike. Fair ! ” he shouted with laughter. ** Fair I 
Hear the P. and S. W. talking about fairness and dis- 
crimination. That’s good, that is. Well, I got furious. 
I was a fool, I suppose. I told them that, in justice to 
myself, I wouldn’t do first-class work for third-class pay. 
And they said, ‘ Well, Mr. Dyke, you know what you 
can do.’ Well, I did know. I said, * I’ll ask for my time, 
if you please,’ and they gave it to me just as if they were 
glad to be shut of me. So there you are, Presley. That’s 
the P. & S. W. Railroad Company of California. I am 
on my last run now.” 

Shameful,” declared Presley, his sympathies all 
aroused, now that the trouble concerned a friend of his. 

It’s shameful, Dyke. But,” he added, an idea occur- 
ring to him, “ that don’t shut you out from work. There 
are other railroads in the State that are not controlled 
by the P. and S. W.” 

Dyke smote his knee with his clenched fist. 

“ Name oneJ* 

Presley was silent. Dyke’s challenge was unanswer- 
al le. There was a lapse in their talk, Presley drumming 
on the arm of the seat, meditating on this injustice; Dyke 
looking off over the fields beyond the town, his frown 
lowering, his teeth rasping upon his pipestem. The 
station agent came to the door of the depot, stretching 
and yawning. On ahead of the engine, the empty rails 
of the track, reaching out toward the horizon, threw 
off visible layers of heat. The telegraph key clicked in- 
cessantly. 

So I’m going to quit,” Dyke remarked after a while, 
his anger somewhat subsided. ** My brother and I will 


20 


The Octopus 

take up this hop ranch. Fve saved a good deal in the 
last ten years, and there ought to be money in hops.^^ 

Presley went on, remounting his bicycle, wheeling 
silently through the deserted streets of the decayed 
and dying Mexican town. It was the hour of the siesta. 
Nobody was about. There was no business in the town. 
It was too close to Bonneville for that. Before the rail- 
road came, and in the days when the raising of cattle 
was the great industry of the country, it had enjoyed a 
fierce and brilliant life. Now it was moribund. The 
drug store, the two bar-rooms, the hotel at the corner of 
the old Plaza, and the shops where Mexican curios 
were sold to those occasional Eastern tourists who came 
to visit the Mission of San Juan, sufficed for the town’s 
activity. 

At Solotari’s, the restaurant on the Plaza, diagonally 
across from the hotel, Presley ate his long-deferred 
Mexican dinner — an omelette in Spanish-Mexican style, 
frijoles and tortillas, a salad, and a glass of white wine. 
In a corner of the room, during the whole course of his 
dinner, two young Mexicans (one of whom was aston- 
ishingly handsome, after the melodramatic fashion of his 
race) and an old fellow, the centenarian of the town, 
decrepit beyond belief, sang an interminable love-song 
to the accompaniment of a guitar and an accordion. 

These Spanish-Mexicans, decayed, picturesque, vi- 
cious, and romantic, never failed to interest Presley. 
A few of them still remained in Guadalajara, drifting 
from the saloon to the restaurant, and from the restau- 
rant to the Plaza, relics of a former generation, standing 
for a different order of things, absolutely idle, living God 
knew how, happy with their cigarette, their guitar, their 
glass of mescal, and their siesta. The centenarian re- 
membered Fremont and Governor Alvarado, and the 
bandit Jesus Tejeda, and the days when Los Muertos 


A Story of California ai 

was a Spanish grant, a veritable principality, leagues in 
extent, and when there was never a fence from Visalia 
to Fresno. Upon this occasion, Presley offered the old 
man a drink of mescal, and excited him to talk of the 
things he remembered. Their talk was in Spanish, a 
language wdth which Presley was familiar. 

‘‘ De La Cuesta held the grant of Los Muertos in those 
days,” the centenarian said; “a grand man. He had 
the power of life and death over his people, and there was 
no law but his word. There was no thought of wheat 
then, you may believe. It was all cattle in those days, 
sheep, horses — steers, not so many — and if money was 
scarce, there was always plenty to eat, and clothes 
enough for all, and wine, ah, yes, by the vat, and oil too ; 
the Mission Fathers had that. Yes, and there was wheat 
as well, now that I come to think; but a very little — in the 
field north of the Mission where now it is the Seed ranch ; 
wheat fields were there, and also a vineyard, all on Mis- 
sion grounds. Wheat, olives, ahd the vine; the Fathers 
planted those, to provide the elements of the Holy Sacra- 
ment — bread, oil, and wine, you understand. It was like 
that, those industries began in California — from the 
Church ; and now,” he put his chin in the air, what 
would Father Ullivari have said to such a crop as Senor 
Derrick plants these days? Ten thousand acres of 
wheat 1 Nothing but wheat from the Sierra to the Coast 
Range. I remember when De La Cuesta was married. 
He had never seen the young lady, only her miniature 
portrait, painted ” — he raised a shoulder — ** I do not 
know by whom, small, a little thingto be held in the palm. 
But he fell in love with that, and marry her he would. 
The affair was arranged between him and the girl’s 
parents. But when the time came that De La Cuesta 
was to go to Monterey to meet and marry the girl, be- 
hold, Jesus Tejeda broke in upon the small rancheros 


22 


The Octopus 


near Terrabella. It was no time for De La Cuesta to 
be away, so he sent his brother Esteban to Monterey 
to marry the girl by proxy for him. I went with Esteban. 
We were a company, nearly a hundred men. And De La 
Cuesta sent a horse for the girl to ride, white, pure white; 
and the saddle was of red leather; the head-stall, the bit, 
and buckles, all the metal work, of virgin silver. Well, 
there was a ceremony in the Monterey Mission, and Es- 
teban, in the name of his brother, was married to the girl. 
On our way back, De La Cuesta rode out to meet us. 
His company met ours at Agatha dos Palos. Never 
will I forget De La Cuesta’s face as his eyes fell upon the 
girl. It was a look, a glance, come and gone like that,** 
he snapped his fingers. “ No one but I saw it, but I was 
close by. There was no mistaking that look. De La 
Cuesta was disappointed.” 

“ And the girl ? ” demanded Presley. 

** She never knew. Ah, he was a grand gentleman, De 
La Cuesta. Always he treated her as a queen. Never 
was husband more devoted, more respectful, more chiv- 
alrous. But love ? ” The old fellow put his chin in the 
air, shutting his eyes in a knowing fashion. “ It was not 
there. I could tell. They were married over again at 
the Mission San Juan de Guadalajara — our Mission — and 
for a week all the town of Guadalajara was in fHe, There 
were bull-fights in the Plaza — this very one — for five 
days, and to each of his tenants-in-chief, De La Cuesta 
gave a horse, a barrel of tallow, an ounce of silver, and 
half an ounce of gold dust. Ah, those were days. That 
was a gay life. This ” — he made a comprehensive ges- 
ture with his left hand — ** this is stupid.” 

“ You may well say that,” observed Pi;esley moodily, 
discouraged by the other’s talk. All his doubts and un- 
certainty had returned to him. Never would he grasp 
the subject of his great poem. To-day, the life was 


23 


A Story of California 

colourless. Romance was dead. He had lived too late. 
To write of the past was not what he desired. Reality 
was what he longed for, things that he had seen. Yet 
how to make this compatible with romance. He rose, 
putting on his hat, offering the old man a cigarette. The 
centenarian accepted with the air of a grandee, and ex- 
tended his horn snuff-box. Presley shook his head. 

“ I was born too late for that,’’ he declared, ** for that, 
and for many other things. Adios” 

‘‘ You are travelling to-day, sehor? ” 

A little turn through the country, to get the kinks 
out of the muscles,” Presley answered. “ I go up into 
the Quien Sabe, into the high country beyond the Mis- 
sion.” 

**Ah, the Quien Sabe rancho. The sheep are graz- 
ing there this week.” 

Solotari, the keeper of the restaurant, explained: 

” Young Annixter sold his wheat stubble on the 
ground to the sheep raisers off yonder ; ” he motioned 
eastward toward the Sierra foothills. ** Since Sunday the 
herd has been down. V ery clever, that young Annixter. 
He gets a price for his stubble, which else he would have 
to burn, and also manures his land as the sheep move 
from place to place. A true Yankee, that Annixter, a 
good gringo.” 

After his meal, Presley once more mounted his bicycle, 
and leaving the restaurant and the Plaza behind him, 
held on through the main street of the drowsing town — 
the street that farther on developed into the road which 
turned abruptly northward and led onward through the 
hop-fields and the Quien Sabe ranch toward the Mission 
of San Juan. 

The Home ranch of the Quien Sabe was in the little 
triangle bounded on the south by the railroad, on the 
northwest by Broderson Creek, and on the east by the 


H 


The Octopus 


hop fields and the Mission lands. It was traversed in all 
directions, now by the trail from Hooven’s, now by the 
irrigating ditch — the same which Presley had crossed 
earlier in the day — and again by the road upon which 
Presley then found himself. In its centre were Annixter’s 
ranch house and barns, topped by the skeleton-like tower 
of the artesian well that was to feed the irrigating ditch. 
Farther on, the course of Broderson Creek was marked 
by a curved line of grey-green willows, while on the 
low hills to the north, as Presley advanced, the ancient 
Mission of San Juan de Guadalajara, with its belfry 
tower and red-tiled roof, began to show itself over the 
crests of the venerable pear trees that clustered in its 
garden. 

When Presley reached Annixter’s ranch house, he 
found young Annixter himself stretched in his hammock 
behind the mosquito-bar on the front porch, reading 

David Copperfield,” and gorging himself with dried 
prunes. 

Annixter — after the two had exchanged greetings — 
complained of terrific colics all the preceding night. 
His stomach was out of whack, but you bet he knew 
how to take care of himself ; the last spell, he had con- 
sulted a doctor at Bonneville, a gibbering busy-face who 
had filled him up to the neck with a dose of some hog- 
wash stuff that had made him worse — a healthy lot the 
doctors knew, anyhow. Hts case was peculiar. He 
knew; prunes were what he needed, and by the pound. 

Annixter, who worked the Quien Sabe ranch — some 
four thousand acres of rich clay and heavy loams — was a 
very young man, younger even than Presley, like him 
a college graduate. He looked never a year older 
than he was. He was smooth-shaven and lean built. 
But his youthful appearance was offset by a certain male 
cast of countenance, the lower lip thrust out, the chin 


25 


A Story of California 

large and deeply cleft. His university course had hard- 
ened rather than polished him. He still remained one 
of the people, rough almost to insolence, direct in speech, 
intolerant in his opinions, relying upon absolutely no one 
but himself ; yet, with all this, of an astonishing degree of 
intelligence, and possessed of an executive ability little 
short of positive genius. He was a ferocious worker, al- 
lowing himself no pleasures, and exacting the same de- 
gree of energy from all his subordinates. He was widely 
hated, and as v/idely trusted. Every one spoke of his 
crusty temper and bullying disposition, invariably quali- 
fying the statement with a commendation of his re- 
sources and capabilities. The devil of a driver, a hard 
man to get along with, obstinate, contrary, cantankerous; 
but brains! No doubt of that; brains to his boots. One 
W'ould like to see the man who could get ahead of him on 
a deal. Twice he had been shot at, once from ambush 
on Osterman^s ranch, and once by one of his own men 
whom he had kicked from the sacking platform of his 
harvester for gross negligence. At college, he had spe- 
cialised on finance, political economy, and scientific ag- 
riculture. After his graduation (he stood almost at the 
very top of his class) he had returned and obtained the 
degree of civil engineer. Then suddenly he had taken a 
notion that a practical knowledge of law was indispens- 
able to a modern farmer. In eight months he did the 
work of three years, studying for his bar examinations. 
His method of study was characteristic. He reduced all 
the material of his text-books to notes. Tearing out the 
leaves of these note-books, he pasted them upon the 
walls of his room; then, in his shirt-sleeves, a cheap cigar 
in his teeth, his hands in his pockets, he walked around 
and around the room, scowling fiercely at his notes, 
memorising, devouring, digesting. At intervals, he drank 
great cupfuls of unsweetened, black coffee. When the 


26 


The Octopus 

bar examinations were held, he was admitted at the very 
head of all the applicants, and was complimented by the 
judge. Immediately afterwards, he collapsed with 
nervous prostration ; his stomach “ got out of whack,’' 
and he all but died in a Sacramento boarding-house, ob- 
stinately refusing to have anything to do with doctors, 
whom he vituperated as a rabble of quacks, dosing him- 
self with a patent medicine and stuffing himself almost 
to bursting with liver pills and dried prunes. 

He had taken a trip to Europe after this sickness to 
put himself completely to rights. He intended to be 
gone a year, but returned at the end of six weeks, ful- 
minating abuse of European cooking. Nearly his entire 
time had been spent in Paris; but of this sojourn he had 
brought back but two souvenirs, an electro-plated bill- 
hook and an empty bird cage which had tickled his fancy 
immensely. 

He was wealthy. Only a year previous to this his 
father — a widower, who had amassed a fortune in land 
speculation — had died, and Annixter, the only son, had 
come into the inheritance. 

For Presley, Annixter professed a great admiration, 
holding in deep respect the man who could rhyme words, 
deferring to him whenever there was question of litera- 
ture or works of fiction. No doubt, there was not much 
use in poetry, and as for novels, to his mind, there were 
only Dickens’s works. Everything else was a lot of lies. 
But just the same, it took brains to g^ind out a poem. It 
wasn’t every one who could rhyme brave ” and 
** glaive,” and make sense out of it. Sure not. 

But Presley’s case was a notable exception. On no 
occasion was Annixter prepared to accept another man’s 
opinion without reserve. In conversation with him, it 
was almost impossible to make any direct statement, 
however trivial, that he would accept without either modi- 


2 ^ 


A Story of California 

fication or open contradiction. He had a passion for 
violent discussion. He would argue upon every subject 
in the range of human knowledge, from astronomy to 
the tariff, from the doctrine of predestination to the 
height of a horse. Never would he admit himself to be 
mistaken; when cornered, he would intrench himself 
behind the remark, Yes, that^s all very well. In some 
ways, it is, and then, again, in some ways, it isn^y 

Singularly enough, he and Presley were the best of 
friends. More than once, Presley marvelled at this state 
of affairs, telling himself that he and Annixter had noth- 
ing in common. In all his circle of acquaintances, Pres- 
ley was the one man with whom Annixter had never 
quarrelled. The two men were diametrically opposed 
in temperament. Presley was easy-going; Annixter, 
alert. Presley was a confirmed dreamer, irresolute, in- 
active, with a strong tendency to melancholy; the young 
farmer was a man of affairs, decisive, combative, whose 
only reflection upon his interior economy was a morbid 
:oncern in the vagaries of his stomach. Yet the two 
never met without a mutual pleasure, taking a genuine 
interest in each other’s affairs, and often putting them- 
selves to great inconvenience to be of trifling service to 
help one another. 

As a last characteristic, Annixter pretended to be a 
woman-hater, for no other reason than that he was a 
very bull-calf of awkwardness in feminine surroundings. 
Feemales ! Rot ! There was a fine way for a man to 
waste his time and his good money, lally gagging with a 
lot of feemales. No, thank you; none of it in hiSy if you 
please. Once only he had an affair — a timid, little 
creature in a glove-cleaning establishment in Sacra- 
mento, whom he had picked up, Heaven knew how. 
After his return to his ranch, a correspondence had been 
maintained between the two^ Annixter taking the pre- 


28 


The Octopus 

caution to typewrite his letters^ and never affixing his 
signature, in an excess of prudence. He furthermore 
made carbon copies of all his letters, filing them away in 
a compartment of his safe. Ah, it would be a clever 
feemale who would get him into a mess. Then, suddenly 
smitten with a panic terror that he had committed him- 
self, that he was involving himself too deeply, he had 
abruptly sent the little woman about her business. It 
was his only love affair. After that, he kept himself free. 
No petticoats should ever have a hold on him. Sure not. 

As Presley came up to the edge of the porch, pushing 
his bicycle in front of him, Annixter excused himself 
for not getting up, alleging that the cramps returned the 
moment he was off his back. 

What are you doing up this way? ” he demanded. 

Oh, just having a look around,” answered Presley. 
How’s the ranch?” 

Say,” observed the other, ignoring his question, 
what’s this I hear about Derrick giving his tenants 
the bounce, and working Los Muertos himself — ^work- 
ing all his land ? ” 

Presley made a sharp movement of impatience with 
his free hand. '' I’ve heard nothing else myself since 
morning. I suppose it must be so.” 

Huh ! ” grunted Annixter, spitting out a prune 
stone. You give Magnus Derrick my compliments 
and tell him he’s a fool.” 

** What do you mean ? ” 

I suppose Derrick thinks he’s still running his mine, 
and that the same principles will apply to getting grain 
out of the earth as to getting gold. Oh, let him go on 
and see where he brings up. That’s right, there’s your 
Western farmer,” he exclaimed contemptuously. “ Get 
the guts out of your land ; work it to death ; never give 
it a rest. Never alternate your crop, and then when 


A Story of California 29 

your soil is exhausted^, sit down and roar about hard 
times.” 

“ J suppose Magnus thinks the land has had rest 
enough these last two dry seasons,” observed Presley. 
“ He has raised no crop to speak of for two years. The 
land has had a good rest.” 

“Ah, yes, that sounds well,” Annixter contradicted, 
unwilling to be convinced. “ In a way, the land’s been 
rested, and then, again, in a way, it hasn’t.” 

But Presley, scenting an argument, refrained from 
answering, and bethought himself of moving on. 

“ I’m going to leave my wheel here for a while. Buck,” 
he said, “ if you don’t mind. I’m going up to the spring, 
and the road is rough between here and there.” 

“ Stop in for dinner on your way back,” said Annixter. 
“ There’ll be a venison steak. One of the boys got a 
deer over in the foothills last week. Out of season, but 
never mind that. I can’t eat it. This stomach of mine 
wouldn’t digest sweet oil to-day. Get here about six.” 

“ Well, maybe I will, thank you,” said Presley, mov- 
ing off. “ By the way,” he added, “ I see your barn is 
about done.” 

“ You bet,” answered Annixter. “ In about a fort- 
night now she’ll be all ready.” 

“ It’s a big barn,” murmured Presley, glancing 
around the angle of the house toward where the great 
structure stood. 

“ Guess we’ll have to have a dance there before we 
move the stock in,” observed Annixter. “ That’s the 
custom all around here.” 

Presley took himself off, but at the gate Annixter 
called after him, his mouth full of prunes, “ Say, take a 
look at that herd of sheep as you go up. They are right 
off here to the east of the road, about half a mile from 
here. I guess that’s the biggest lot of sheep you ever 


30 


The Octopus 


saw. You might write a poem about ’em. Lamb — ram ; 
sheep graze — sunny days. Catch on?” 

Beyond Broderson Creek, as Presley advanced, 
tramping along on foot now, the land opened out again 
into the same vast spaces of dull brown earth, 
sprinkled with stubble, such as had been characteristic 
of Derrick’s ranch. To the east the reach seemed in- 
finite, flat, cheerless, heat-ridden, unrolling like a gigantic 
scroll toward the faint shimmer of the distant horizons, 
with here and there an isolated live-oak to break the 
sombre monotony. But bordering the road to the west- 
ward, the surface roughened and raised, clambering up 
to the higher ground, on the crest of which the old Mis- 
sion and its surrounding pear trees were now plainly 
visible. 

Just beyond the Mission, the road bent abruptly east- 
ward, striking off across the Seed ranch. But Presley 
left the road at this point, going on across the open 
fields. There was no longer any trail. It was toward 
three o’clock. The sun still spun, a silent, blazing disc, 
high in the heavens, and tramping through the clods of 
uneven, broken plough was fatiguing work. The slope 
of the lowest foothills begun, the surface of the country 
became rolling, and, suddenly, as he topped a higher 
ridge, Presley came upon the sheep. 

Already he had passed the larger part of the herd — an 
intervening rise of ground having hidden it from sight. 
Now, as he turned half way about, looking down into the 
shallow hollow between him and the curve of the creek, 
he saw them very plainly. The fringe of the herd was 
some two hundred yards distant, but its farther side, in 
that illusive shimmer of hot surface air, seemed miles 
away. The sheep were spread out roughly in the shape 
of a figure eight, two larger herds connected by a 
smaller, and were headed to the southward, moving 


31 


A Story of California 

slowly, grazing on the wheat stubble as they proceeded. 
But the number seemed incalculable. Hundreds upon 
hundreds upon hundreds of grey, rounded backs, all ex- 
actly alike, huddled, close-packed, alive, hid the earth 
from sight. It was no longer an aggregate of individuals. 
It was a mass — a compact, solid, slowly moving mass, 
huge, without form, like a thick-pressed growth of mush- 
rooms, spreading out in all directions over the earth. 
From it there arose a vague murmur, confused, inartic- 
ulate, like the sound of very distant surf, while all the air 
in the vicinity was heavy with the warm, ammoniacal 
odour of the thousands of crowding bodies. 

All the colours of the scene were sombre — the brown 
of the earth, the faded yellow of the dead stubble, the 
grey of the myriad of undulating backs. Only on the far 
side of the herd, erect, motionless — a single note of 
black, a speck, a dot — the shepherd stood, leaning upon 
an empty water-trough, solitary, grave, impressive. 

For a few moments, Presley stood, watching. Then, 
as he started to move on, a curious thing occurred. At 
first, he thought he had heard some one call his name. 
He paused, listening; there was no sound but the vague 
noise of the moving sheep. Then, as this first impression 
passed, it seemed to him that he had been beckoned to. 
Yet nothing stirred; except for the lonely figure beyond 
the herd there was no one in sight. He started on again, 
and in half a dozen steps found himself looking over his 
shoulder. Without knowing why, he looked toward the 
shepherd ; then halted and looked a second time and a 
third. Had the shepherd called to him? Presley knew 
that he had heard no voice. Brusquely, all his attention 
seemed riveted upon this distant figure. He put one 
forearm over his eyes, to keep off the sun, gazing across 
the intervening herd. Surely, the shepherd had called 
him. But at the next instant he started, uttering an ex- 


32 


The Octopus 

damation under his breath. The far-away speck of 
black became animated. Presley remarked a sweeping 
gesture. Though the man had not beckoned to him be- 
fore, there was no doubt that he was beckoning now. 
Without any hesitation, and singularly interested in the 
incident, Presley turned sharply aside and hurried on 
toward the shepherd, skirting the herd, wondering all 
the time that he should answer the call with so little 
question, so little hesitation. 

But the sliepherd came forward to meet Presley, fol- 
lowed by one of his dogs. As the two men approached 
each other, Presley, closely studying the other, began to 
wonder where he had seen him before. It must have 
been a very long time ago, upon one of his previous visits 
to the ranch. Certainly, however, there was something 
familiar in the shepherd’s face and figure. When they 
came closer to each other, and Presley could see him 
more distinctly, this sense of a previous acquaintance 
was increased and sharpened. 

The shepherd was a man of about thirty-five. He was 
very lean and spare. His brown canvas overalls were 
thrust into laced boots. A cartridge belt without any 
cartridges encircled his waist. A grey flannel shirt, open 
at the throat, showed his breast, tanned and ruddy. He 
wore no hat. His hair was very black and rather long. 
A pointed beard covered his chin, growing straight and 
fine from the hollow cheeks. The absence of any cover- 
ing for his head was, no doubt, habitual with him, for his 
face was as brown as an Indian’s — a ruddy brown — quite 
different from Presley’s dark olive. To Presley’s mor- 
bidly keen observation, the general impression of the 
shepherd’s face was intensely interesting. It was un- 
common to an astonishing degree. Presley’s vivid imag- 
ination chose to see in it the face of an ascetic, of a 
recluse, almost that of a young seer. So must have 


33 


A Story of California 

appeared the half-inspired shepherds of the Hebraic 
legends, the younger prophets of Israel, dwellers in the 
wilderness, beholders of visions, having their existence 
in a continual dream, talkers with God, gifted with 
strange powers. 

Suddenly, at some twenty paces distant from the ap- 
proaching shepherd, Presley stopped short, his eyes 
riveted upon the other. 

“ Vanamee ! he exclaimed. 

The shepherd smiled and came forward, holding out 
his hands, saying, I thought it was you. When I saw 
you come over the hill, I called you.’^ 

But not with your voice,” returned Presley. ** I 
knew that some one wanted me. I felt it. I should 
have remembered that you could do that kind of 
thing.” 

I have never known it to fail. It helps with the 
sheep.” 

With the sheep?” 

** In a way. I can’t tell exactly how. We don’t under- 
stand these things yet. There are times when, if I close 
my eyes and dig my fists into my temples, I can hold the 
entire herd for perhaps a minute. Perhaps, though, it’s 
imagination, who knows? But it’s good to see you 
again. How long has it been since the last time ? Two, 
three, nearly five years.” 

It was more than that. It was six years since Presley 
and Vanamee had met, and then it had been for a short 
time only, during one of the shepherd’s periodical brief 
returns to that part of the country. During a week he 
and Presley had been much together, for the two were 
devoted friends. Then, as abruptly, as mysteriously as 
he had come, Vanamee disappeared. Presley awoke one 
morning to find him gone. Thus, it had been with Van- 
amee for a period of sixteen years. He lived his life in 
3 


34 


The Octopus 

the unknown, one could not tell where — in the desert, in 
the mountains, throughout all the vast and vague South- 
west, solitary, strange. Three, four, five years passed. 
The shepherd would be almost forgotten. Never the 
most trivial scrap of information as to his whereabouts 
reached Los Muertos. He had melted off into the 
surface-shimmer of the desert, into the mirage ; he sank 
below the horizons ; he was swallowed up in the waste of 
sand and sage. Then, without warning, he would reap- 
pear, coming in from the wilderness, emerging from the 
unknown. No one knew him well. In all that country- 
side he had but three friends, Presley, Magnus Derrick, 
and the priest at the Mission of San Juan de Guadala- 
jara, Father Sarria. He remained always a mystery, 
living a life half-real, half-legendary. In all those years 
he did not seem to have grown older by a single day. 
At this time, Presley knew him to be thirty-six years of 
age. But since the first day the two had met, the shep- 
herd’s face and bearing had, to his eyes, remained the 
same. At this moment, Presley was looking into the 
same face he had first seen many, many years ago. It 
was a face stamped with an unspeakable sadness, a death- 
less grief, the permanent imprint of a tragedy long past, 
but yet a living issue. Presley told himself that it was 
impossible to look long into Vanamee’s eyes without 
knowing that here was a man whose whole being had 
been at one time shattered and riven to its lowest depths, 
whose life had suddenly stopped at a certain moment of 
its development. 

The two friends sat down upon the ledge of the water- 
ing-trough, their eyes wandering incessantly toward the 
slow moving herd, grazing on the wheat stubble, moving 
southward as they grazed. 

Where have you come from this time? ’’ Presley had 
asked. Where have you kept yourself? ** 


A Story of California 35 

The other swept the horizon to the south and east 
with a vague gesture. 

Off there, down to the south, very far off. So many 
places that I can’t remember. I went the Long Trail 
this time; a long, long ways. Arizona, The Mexicos, 
and, then, afterwards, Utah and Nevada, following the 
horizon, travelling at hazard. Into Arizona first, going 
in by Monument Pass, and then on to the south, through 
the country of the Navajos, down by the Aga Thia 
Needle — a great blade of red rock jutting from out the 
desert, like a knife thrust. Then on and on through The 
Mexicos, all through the Southwest, then back again 
in a great circle by Chihuahua and Aldama to Laredo, 
to Torreon, and Albuquerque. From there across the 
Uncompahgre plateau into the Uintah country; then at 
last due west through Nevada to California and to the 
valley of the San Joaquin.” 

His voice lapsed to a monotone, his eyes becoming 
fixed; he continued to speak as though half awake, 
his thoughts elsewhere, seeing again in the eye of his 
mind the reach of desert and red hill, the purple moun- 
tain, the level stretch of alkali, leper white, all the savage, 
gorgeous desolation of the Long Trail. 

He ignored Presley for the moment, but, on the other 
hand, Presley himself gave him but half his attention. 
The return of Vanamee had stimulated the poet’s mem- 
ory. He recalled the incidents of Vanamee’s life, re- 
viewing again that terrible drama which had uprooted 
his soul, which had driven him forth a wanderer, a shun- 
ner of men, a sojourner in waste places. He was, 
strangely enough, a college graduate and a man of wide 
reading and great intelligence, but he had chosen to 
lead his own life, which was that of a recluse. 

Of a temperament similar in many ways to Presley's, 
there were capabilities in Vanamee that were not ordi- 


36 


The Octopus 


narily to be found in the rank and file of men. Living 
close to nature, a poet by instinct, where Presley was 
but a poet by training, there developed in him a great 
sensitiveness to beauty and an almost abnormal capacity 
for great happiness and great sorrow; he felt things 
intensely, deeply. He never forgot. It was when he 
was eighteen or nineteen, at the formative and most 
impressionable period of his life, that he had met Ar^- 
gele Varian. Presley barely remembered her as a girl 
of sixteen, beautiful almost beyond expression, who lived 
with an aged aunt on the Seed ranch back of the Mission. 
At this moment he was trying to recall how she looked, 
with her hair of gold hanging in two straight plaits on 
either side of her face, making three-cornered her round, 
white forehead; her wonderful eyes, violet blue, heavy 
lidded, with their astonishing upward slant toward the 
temples, the slant that gave a strange, oriental cast to 
her face, perplexing, enchanting. He remembered the 
Egyptian fulness of the lips, the strange balancing 
movement of her head upon her slender neck, the same 
movement that one sees in a snake at poise. Never 
had he seen a girl more radiantly beautiful, never a 
beauty so strange, so troublous, so out of all accepted 
standards. It was small wonder that Vanamee had loved 
her, and less wonder, still, that his love had been so in- 
tense, so passionate, so part of himself. Angele had 
loved him with a love no less than his own. It was one 
of those legendary passions that sometimes occur, idyl- 
lic, untouched by civilisation, spontaneous as the growth 
of trees, natural as dew-fall, strong as the firm-seated 
mountains. 

At the time of his meeting with Angele, Vanamee was 
living on the Los Muertos ranch. It was there he had 
chosen to spend one of his college vacations. But he pre- 
ferred to pass it in out-of-door work, sometimes herding 


37 


A Stoiy o{ California 

cattle, sometimes pitching hay, sometimes working with 
pick and dynamite-stick on the ditches in the fourth divi- 
sion of the ranch, riding the range, mending breaks in 
the wire fences, making himself generally useful. Col- 
lege bred though he was, the life pleased him. He was, 
as he desired, close to nature, living the full measure 
of life, a worker among workers, taking enjoyment in 
simple pleasures, healthy in mind and body. He be- 
lieved in an existence passed in this fashion in the coun- 
try, working hard, eating full, drinking deep, sleeping 
dreamlessly. 

But every night, after supper, he saddled his pony and 
rode over to the garden of the old Mission. The ’dobe 
dividing wall on that side, which once had separated the 
Mission garden and the Seed ranch, had long since 
crumbled away, and the boundary between the two pieces 
of ground was marked only by a line of venerable pear 
trees. Here, under these trees, he found Angele await- 
ing him, and there the two would sit through the hot, 
still evening, their arms about each other, watching the 
moon rise over the foothills, listening to the trickle of 
the water in the moss-encrusted fountain in the garden, 
and the steady croak of the great frogs that lived in the 
damp north corner of the enclosure. Through all one 
summer the enchantment of that new-found, wonderful 
love, pure and untainted, filled the lives of each of them 
with its sweetness. The summer passed, the harvest 
moon came and went. The nights were very dark. In 
the deep shade of the pear trees they could no longer 
see each other. When they met at the rendezvous, 
Vanamee found her only with his groping hands. They 
did not speak, mere words were useless between them. 
Silently as his reaching hands touched her warm 
body, he took her in his arms, searching for her lips 
with his. Then one night the tragedy had suddenly 


38 The Octopus 

leaped from out the shadow with the abruptness of an 
explosion. 

It was impossible afterwards to reconstruct the man- 
ner of its occurrence. To Angele’s mind — what there 
was left of it — the matter always remained a hideous 
blur, a blot, a vague, terrible confusion. No doubt they 
two had been watched; the plan succeeded too well for 
any other supposition. One moonless night, Angele, 
arriving under the black shadow of the pear trees a little 
earlier than usual, found the apparently familiar figure 
waiting for her. All unsuspecting she gave herself to 
the embrace of a strange pair of arms, and Vanamee ar- 
riving but a score of moments later, stumbled over her 
prostrate body, inert and unconscious, in the shadow of 
the overspiring trees. 

Who was the Other? Angele was carried to her home 
on the Seed ranch, delirious, all but raving, and Vana- 
mee, with knife and revolver ready, ranged the country- 
side like a wolf. He was not alone. The whole county 
rose, raging, horror-struck. Posse after posse was 
formed, sent out, and returned, without so much as a 
clue. Upon no one could even the shadow of suspicion 
be thrown. The Other had withdrawn into an impene- 
trable mystery. There he remained. He never was 
found; he never was so much as heard of. A legend 
arose about him, this prowler of the night, this strange, 
fearful figure, with an unseen face, swooping in there 
from out the darkness, come and gone in an instant, but 
leaving behind him a track of terror and death and rage 
and undying grief. Within the year, in giving birth to 
the child, Angele had died. 

The little babe was taken by Angele’s parents, and 
Angele was buried in the Mission garden near to the 
aged, grey sun dial. Vanamee stood by during the cere- 
mony, but half conscious of what was going forward. 


39 


A Story of California 

At the last moment he had stepped forward, looked long 
into the dead face framed in its plaits of gold hair, the 
hair that made three-cornered the round, white fore- 
head ; looked again at the closed eyes, with their perplex- 
ing upward slant toward the temples, oriental, bizarre ; 
at the lips with their Egyptian fulness; at the sweet, 
slender neck ; the long, slim hands ; then abruptly turned 
about. The last clods were filling the grave at a time 
when he was already far away, his horse’s head turned 
toward the desert. 

For two years no syllable was heard of him. It was 
believed that he had killed himself. But Vanamee had 
no thought of that. For two years he wandered through 
Arizona, living in the desert, in the wilderness, a recluse, 
a nomad, an ascetic. But, doubtless, all his heart was 
in the little coffin in the Mission garden. Once in so 
often he must come back thither. One day he was seen 
again in the San Joaquin. The priest. Father Sarria, 
returning from a visit to the sick at Bonneville, met him 
on the Upper Road. 

Eighteen years had passed since Angele had died, but 
the thread of Vanamee’s life had been snapped. Noth- 
ing remained now but the tangled ends. He had never 
forgotten. The long, dull ache, the poignant grief had 
now become a part of him. Presley knew this to be so. 

While Presley had been reflecting upon all this, Vana- 
mee had continued to speak. Presley, however, had 
not been wholly inattentive. While his memory was 
busy reconstructing the details of the drama of the 
shepherd’s life, another part of his brain had been swiftly 
registering picture after picture that Vanamee’s monoto- 
nous flow of words struck off, as it were, upon a stead- 
ily moving scroll. The music of the unfamiliar names 
that occurred in his recital was a stimulant to the poet’s 
imagination. Presley had the poet’s passion for expres- 


40 


The Octopus 

sive, sonorous names. As these came and went in 
Vanamee’s monotonous undertones, like little notes of 
harmony in a musical progression, he listened, delighted 
with their resonance. Navajo, Quijotoa, Uintah, So- 
nora, Laredo, Uncompahgre — to him they were so many 
symbols. It was his West that passed, unrolling there 
before the eye of his mind: the open, heat-scourged 
round of desert ; the mesa, like a vast altar, shimmering 
purple in the royal sunset ; the still, gigantic mountains, 
heaving into the sky from out the canons ; the strenuous, 
fierce life of isolated towns, lost and forgotten, down 
there, far off, below the horizon. Abruptly his great 
poem, his Song of the West, leaped up again in his 
imagination. For the moment, he all but held it. It 
was there, close at hand. In another instant he would 
grasp it. 

“ Yes, yes,” he exclaimed, “ I can see it all. The des- 
ert, the mountains, all wild, primordial, untamed. How 
I should have loved to have been with you. Then, per- 
haps, I should have got hold of my idea.” 

Your idea? ” 

The great poem of the West. It’s that which I want 
to write. Oh, to put it all into hexameters; strike the 
great iron note; sing the vast, terrible song; the song of 
the People; the forerunners of empire!” 

Vanamee understood him perfectly. He nodded 
gravely. 

Yes, it is there. It is Life, the primitive, simple, 
direct Life, passionate, tumultuous. Yes, there is an 
epic there.” 

Presley caught at the word. It had never before oc- 
curred to him. 

“ Epic, yes, that’s it. It is the epic I’m searching for. 
And how I search for it. You don’t know. It is some- 
times almost an agony. Often and often I can feel it 


41 


A Story of California 

right there, there, at my finger-tips, but I never quite 
catch it. It always eludes me. I was born too late. 
Ah, to get back to that first clear-eyed view of things, to 
see as Homer saw, as Beowulf saw, as the Nibelungen 
poets saw. The life is here, the same as then; the Poem 
is here; my West is here; the primeval, epic life is here, 
here under our hands, in the desert, in the mountain, on 
the ranch, all over here, from Winnipeg to Guadalupe. 
It is the man who is lacking, the poet; we have been 
educated away from it all. We are out of touch. We 
are out of tune.’’ 

Vanamee heard him to the end, his grave, sad face 
thoughtful and attentive. Then he rose. 

I am going over to the Mission,” he said, “ to see 
Father Sarria. I have not seen him yet.” 

How about the sheep? ” 

The dogs will keep them in hand, and I shall not be 
gone long. Besides that, I have a boy here to help. He 
is over yonder on the other side of the herd. We can’t 
see him from here.” 

Presley wondered at the heedlessness of leaving the 
sheep so slightly guarded, but made no comment, and 
the two started off across the field in the direction of the 
Mission church. 

Well, yes, it is there — your epic,” observed Vana- 
mee, as they went along. “ But why write? Why not 
live in it? Steep oneself in the heat of the desert, the 
glory of the sunset, the blue haze of the mesa and the 
canon.” 

As you have done, for instance? ” 

Vanamee nodded. 

“ No, I could not do that,” declared Presley; “ I want 
to go back, but not so far as you. I feel that I must 
compromise. I must find expression. I could not lose 
myself like that in your desert. When its vastness over- 


42 


The Octopus 


whelmed me, or its beauty dazzled me, or its loneliness 
weighed down upon me, I should have to record my 
impressions. Otherwise, I should suffocate.'^ 

“ Each to his own life,’' observed Vanamee. 

The Mission of San Juan, built of brown ’dobe blocks, 
covered with yellow plaster, that at many points had 
dropped away from the walls, stood on the crest of a 
low rise of the ground, facing to the south. A covered 
colonnade, paved with round, worn bricks, from whence 
opened the doors of the abandoned cells, once used by 
the monks, adjoined it on the left. The roof was of tiled 
half-cylinders, split longitudinally, and laid in alternate 
rows, now concave, now convex. The main body of the 
church itself was at right angles to the colonnade, and 
at the point of intersection rose the belfry tower, an 
ancient campanile, where swung the three cracked 
bells, the gift of the King of Spain. Beyond the church 
was the Mission garden and the graveyard that over- 
looked the Seed ranch in a little hollow beyond. 

Presley and Vanamee went down the long colonnade 
to the last door next the belfry tower, and Vanamee 
pulled the leather thong that hung from a hole in the 
door, setting a little bell jangling somewhere in the in- 
terior. The place, but for this noise, was shrouded in 
a Sunday stillness, an absolute repose. Only at inter- 
vals, one heard the trickle of the unseen fountain, and the 
liquid cooing of doves in the garden. 

Father Sarria opened the door. He was a small man, 
somewhat stout, with a smooth and shiny face. He wore 
a frock coat that was rather dirty, slippers, and an old 
yachting cap of blue cloth, with a broken leather vizor. 
He was smoking a cheap cigar, very fat and black. 

But instantly he recognised Vanamee. His face went 
all alight with pleasure and astonishment. It seemed as 
if he would never have finished shaking both his hands ; 


43 


A Story of California 

and, as it was, he released but one of them, patting him 
affectionately on the shoulder with the. other. He was 
voluble in his welcome, talking partly in Spanish, partly 
in English. 

So he had come back again, this great fellow, tanned 
as an Indian, lean as an Indian, with an Indian’s long, 
black hair. But he had not changed, not in the very 
least. His beard had not grown an inch. Aha! The 
rascal, never to give warning, to drop down, as it were, 
from out the sky. Such a hermit! To live in the desert! 
A veritable Saint Jerome. Did a lion feed him down 
there in Arizona, or was it a raven, like Elijah? The 
good God had not fattened him, at any rate, and, apro- 
pos, he was just about to dine himself. He had made 
a salad from his own lettuce. The two would dine with 
him, eh? For this, my son, that was lost is found again. 

But Presley excused himself. Instinctively, he felt 
that Sarria and Vanamee wanted to talk of things con- 
cerning which he was an outsider. It was not at all un- 
likely that Vanamee would spend half the night before 
the high altar in the church. 

He took himself away, his mind still busy with Van- 
amee’s extraordinary life and character. But, as he 
descended the hill, he was startled by a prolonged and 
raucous cry, discordant, very harsh, thrice repeated at 
exact intervals, and, looking up, he saw one of Father 
Sarria’s peacocks balancing himself upon the topmost 
wire of the fence, his long tail trailing, his neck out- 
stretched, filling the air with his stupid outcry, for no 
reason than the desire to make a noise. 

About an hour later, toward four in the afternoon, 
Presley reached the spring at the head of the little canon 
in the northeast corner of the Quien Sabe ranch, the 
point toward which he had been travelling since early in 
the forenoon. The place was not without its charm. 


44 


The Octopus 

Innumerable live-oaks overhung the canon, and Broder- 
son Creek — there a mere rivulet, running down from 
the spring — gave a certain coolness to the air. It was 
one of the few spots thereabouts that had survived the 
dry season of the last year. Nearly all the other springs 
had dried completely, while Mission Creek on Derrick’s 
ranch was nothing better than a dusty cutting in the 
ground, filled with brittle, concave flakes of dried and 
sun-cracked mud. 

Presley climbed to the summit of one of the hills — the 
highest — that rose out of the canon, from the crest of 
which he could see for thirty, fifty, sixty miles down the 
valley, and, filling his pipe, smoked lazily for upwards of 
an hour, his head empty of thought, allowing himself to 
succumb to a pleasant, gentle inanition, a little drowsy, 
comfortable in his place, prone upon the ground, warmed 
just enough by such sunlight as filtered through the live- 
oaks, soothed by the good tobacco and the prolonged 
murmur of the spring and creek. By degrees, the sense 
of his own personality became blunted, the little wheels 
and cogs of thought moved slower and slower; con- 
sciousness dwindled to a point, the animal in him 
stretched itself, purring. A delightful numbness in- 
vaded his mind and his body. He was not asleep, he was 
not awake, stupefied merely, lapsing back to the state 
of the faun, the satyr. 

After a while, rousing himself a little, he shifted his 
position and, drawing from the pocket of his shooting 
coat his little tree-calf edition of the Odyssey, read far 
into the twenty-first book, where, after the failure of all 
the suitors to bend Ulysses’s bow, it is finally put, with 
mockery, into his own hands. Abruptly the drama of 
the story roused him from all his languor. In an instant, 
he was the poet again, his nerves tingling, alive to every 
sensation, responsive to every impression. The desire 


45 


A Story of California 

of creation, of composition, grew big within him. Hexa- 
meters of his own clamoured, tumultuous, in his brain. 
Not for a long time had he felt his poem,” as he called 
this sensation, so poignantly. For an instant he told 
himself that he actually held it. 

It was, no doubt, Vanamee’s talk that had stimulated 
him to this point. The story of the Long Trail, with its 
desert and mountain, its cliff-dwellers, its Aztec ruins, its 
colour, movement, and romance, filled his mind with 
picture after picture. The epic defiled before his vision 
like a pageant. Once more, he shot a glance about him, 
as if in search of the inspiration, and this time he all but 
found it. He rose to his feet, looking out and off below 
him. 

As from a pinnacle, Presley, from where he now stood, 
dominated the entire country. The sun had begun to 
set, everything in the range of his vision was overlaid 
with a sheen of gold. 

First, close at hand, it was the Seed ranch, carpeting 
the little hollow behind the Mission with a spread of 
greens, some dark, some vivid, some pale almost to yel- 
lowness. Beyond that was the Mission itself, its vener- 
able campanile, in whose arches hung the Spanish King’s 
bells, already glowing ruddy in the sunset. Farther on, 
he could make out Annixter’s ranch house, marked by 
the skeleton-like tower of the artesian well, and, a little 
farther to the east, the huddled, tiled roofs of Guadala- 
iara. Far to the west and north, he saw Bonneville very 
Ijifain, and the dome of the courthouse, a purple silhou- 
ette against the glare of the sky. Other points detached 
themselves, swimming in a golden mist, projecting blue 
shadows far before them; the mammoth live-oak by 
Hooven’s, towering superb and magnificent ; the line of 
eucalyptus trees, behind which he knew was the Los 
Muertos ranch house — his home; the watering-tank, the 


46 


The Octopus 

great iron-hooped tower of wood that stood at the join- 
ing of the Lower Road and the County Road ; the long 
wind-break of poplar trees and the white walls of Cara- 
her’s saloon on the County Road. 

But all this seemed to be only foreground, a mere 
array of accessories — a mass of irrelevant details. Be- 
yond Annixter’s, beyond Guadalajara, beyond the Lower 
Road, beyond Broderson Creek, on to the south and 
west, infinite, illimitable, stretching out there under the 
sheen of the sunset forever and forever, flat, vast, un- 
broken, a huge scroll, unrolling between the horizons, 
spread the great stretches of the ranch of Los Muer- 
tos, bare of crops, shaved close in the recent harvest. 
Near at hand were hills, but on that far southern horizon 
only the curve of the great earth itself checked the view. 
Adjoining Los Muertos, and widening to the west, 
opened the Broderson ranch. The Osterman ranch to 
the northwest carried on the great sweep of landscape ; 
ranch after ranch. Then, as the imagination itself ex- 
panded under the stimulus of that measureless range of 
vision, even those great ranches resolved themselves 
into mere foreground, mere accessories, irrelevant de- 
tails. Beyond the fine line of the horizons, over the 
curve of the globe, the shoulder of the earth, were other 
ranches, equally vast, and beyond these, others, and be- 
yond these, still others, the immensities multiplying,* 
lengthening out vaster and vaster. The whole gigantic 
sweep of the San Joaquin expanded. Titanic, before the 
eye of the mind, flagellated with heat, quivering anc*v 
shimmering under the sun’s red eye. At long intervals, 
a faint breath of wind out of the south passed slowly 
over the levels of the baked and empty earth, accentuat- 
ing the silence, marking off the stillness. It seemed to 
exhale from the land itself, a prolonged sigh as of deep 
fatigue. It was the season after the harvest, and the 


47 


A Story of California 

great earth, the mother, after its period of reproduction, 
its pains of labour, delivered of the fruit of its loins, slept 
the sleep of exhaustion, the infinite repose of the colos- 
sus, benignant, eternal, strong, the nourisher of nations, 
the feeder of an entire world. 

Ha! there it was, his epic, his inspiration, his West, 
his thundering progression of hexameters. A sudden 
uplift, a sense of exhilaration, of physical exaltation ap- 
peared abruptly to sweep Presley from his feet. As 
from a point high above the world, he seemed to domi- 
nate a universe, a whole order of things. He was diz- 
zied, stunned, stupefied, his morbid supersensitive mind 
reeling, drunk with the intoxication of mere immensity. 
Stupendous ideas for which there were no names drove 
headlong through his brain. Terrible, formless shapes, 
vague figui es, gigantic, monstrous, distorted, whirled at 
a gallop through his imagination. 

He started homeward, still in his dream, descending 
from the hill, emerging from the canon, and took the 
short cut straight across the Quien Sabe ranch, leaving 
Guadalajara far to his left. He tramped steadily on 
through the wheat stubble, walking fast, his head in a 
whirl. 

Never had he so nearly grasped his inspiration as at 
that moment on the hill-top. Even now, though the 
sunset was fading, though the wide reach of valley was 
shut from sight, it still kept him company. Now the 
details came thronging back — the component parts of 
his poem, the signs and symbols of the West. It was 
there, close at hand, he had been in touch with it all day. 
It was in the centenarian^s vividly coloured reminis- 
cences — De La Cuesta, holding his grant from the Span- 
ish crown, with his power of life and death; the romance 
of his marriage ; the white horse with its pillion of red 
leather and silver bridle mountings ; the bull-fights in ths 


48 


The Octopus 


Plaza; the gifts of gold dust, and horses and tallow. It 
was in Vanamee’s strange history, the tragedy of his 
love; Angele Varian, v/ith her marvellous loveliness; the 
Egyptian fulness of her lips, the perplexing upward slant 
of her violet eyes, bizarre, oriental; her white forehead 
made three cornered by her plaits of gold hair; the mys- 
tery of the Other; her death at the moment of her child’s 
birth. It was in Vanamee’s flight into the wilderness; 
the story of the Long Trail; the sunsets behind the altar- 
like mesas, the baking desolation of the deserts; the 
strenuous, fierce life of forgotten towns, down there, far 
off, lost below the horizons of the southwest; the sono- 
rous music of unfamiliar names — Quijotoa, Uintah, So- 
nora, Laredo, Uncompahgre. It was in the Mission, with 
its cracked bells, its decaying walls, its venerable sun dial, 
its fountain and old garden, and in the Mission Fathers 
themselves, the priests, the padres, planting the first 
wheat and oil and wine to produce the elements of the 
Sacrament — a trinity of great industries, taking their 
rise in a religious rite. 

Abruptly, as if in confirmation, Presley heard the 
sound of a bell from the direction of the Mission itself. 
It was the de Profundis, a note of the Old World; of the 
ancient regime, an echo from the hillsides of mediaeval 
Europe, sounding there in this new land, unfamiliar and 
strange at this end-of-the-century time. 

By now, however, it was dark. Presley hurried for- 
ward. He came to the line fence of the Quien Sabe 
ranch. Everything was very still. The stars were all 
out. There was not a sound other than the de Profun- 
diSy still sounding from very far away. At long intervals 
the great earth sighed dreamily in its sleep. All about, 
the feeling of absolute peace and quiet and security and 
untroubled happiness and content seemed descending 
from the stars like a benediction. The beauty of his 


49 


A Story of California 

poem, its idyl, came to him like a caress; that alone 
had been lacking. It was that, perhaps, which had left 
it hitherto incomplete. At last he was to grasp his song 
in all its entity. 

But suddenly there was an interruption. Presley had 
climbed the fence at the limit of the Quien Sabe ranch. 
Beyond was Los Muertos, but between the two ran the 
railroad. He had only time to jump back upon the 
embankment when, with a quivering of all the earth, a 
locomotive, single, unattached, shot by him with a roar, 
filling the air with the reek of hot oil, vomiting smoke 
and sparks ; its enormous eye, cyclopean, red, throwing 
a glare far in advance, shooting by in a sudden crash of 
confused thunder; filling the night with the terrific 
clamour of its iron hoofs. 

Abruptly Presley remembered. This must be the 
crack passenger engine of which Dyke had told him, the 
one delayed by the accident on the Bakersfield division 
and for whose passage the track had been opened all the 
way to Fresno. 

Before Presley could recover from the shock of the 
irruption, while the earth was still vibrating, the rails 
still humming, the engine was far away, flinging the echo 
of its frantic gallop over all the valley. For a brief in- 
stant it roared with a hollow diapason on the Long 
Trestle over Broderson Creek, then plunged into a cut- 
ting farther on, the quivering glare of its fires losing it- 
self in the night, its thunder abruptly diminishing to a 
subdued and distant humming. All at once this ceased. 
The engine was gone. 

But the moment the noise of the engine lapsed, Pres- 
ley — about to start forward again — was conscious of a 
confusion of lamentable sounds that rose into the night 
from out the engine’s wake. Prolonged cries of agony, 
sobbing wails of infinite pain, heart-rending, pitiful. 


50 


The Octopus 

The noises came from a little distance. He ran down 
the track, crossing the culvert, over the irrigating ditch, 
and at the head of the long reach of track — between the 
culvert and the Long Trestle — paused abruptly, held im- 
movable at the sight of the ground and rails all about 
him. 

In some way, the herd of sheep — ^Vanamee^s herd — 
had found a breach in the wire fence by the right of way 
and had wandered out upon the tracks. A band had been 
crossing just at the moment of the engine’s passage. 
The pathos of it was beyond expression. It was a 
slaughter, a massacre of innocents. The iron monster 
had charged full into the midst, merciless, inexorable. 
To the right and left, all the width of the right of way, 
the little bodies had been flung; backs were snapped 
against the fence posts ; brains knocked out. Caught in 
the barbs of the wire, wedged in, the bodies hung sus- 
pended. Under foot it was terrible. The black blood, 
winking in the starlight, seeped down into the clinkers 
between the ties with a prolonged sucking murmur. 

Presley turned away, horror-struck, sick at heart, 
overwhelmed with a quick burst of irresistible compas- 
sion for this brute agony he could not relieve. The 
sweetness was gone from the evening, the sense of peace, 
of security, and placid contentment was stricken from 
the landscape. The hideous ruin in the engine’s path 
drove all thought of his poem from his mind. The in- 
spiration vanished like a mist. The de Profundis had 
ceased to ring. 

He hurried on across the Los Muertos ranch, almost 
running, even putting his hands over his ears till he was 
out of hearing distance of that all but human distress. 
Not until he was beyond ear-shot did he pause, looking 
back, listening. The night had shut down again. For 
a moment the silence was profound, unbroken. 


51 


A Story of California 

Then, faint and prolonged, across the levels of the 
ranch, he heard the engine whistling for Bonneville. 
Again and again, at rapid intervals in its flying course, it 
whistled for road crossings, for sharp curves, for trestles; 
ominous notes, hoarse, bellowing, ringing with the ac- 
cents of menace and defiance; and abruptly Presley saw 
again, in his imagination, the galloping monster, the ter- 
ror of steel and steam, with its single eye, cyclopean, red, 
shooting from horizon to horizon; but saw it now as the 
symbol of a vast power, huge, terrible, flinging the echo 
of its thunder over all the reaches of the valley, leaving 
blood and destruction in its path ; the leviathan, with ten- 
tacles of steel clutching into the soil, the soulless Force, 
the iron-hearted Power, the monster, the Colossus, the 
Octopus. 


n 


On the following morning, Harran Derrick was up and 
about by a little after six o’clock, and a quarter of an 
hour later had breakfast in the kitchen of the ranch 
house, preferring not to wait until the Chinese cook laid 
the table in the regular dining-room. He scented a hard 
day’s work ahead of him, and was anxious to be at it be- 
times. He was practically the manager of Los Muertos, 
and, with the aid of his foreman and three division super- 
intendents, carried forward nearly the entire direction of 
the ranch, occupying himself with the details of his 
father’s plans, executing his orders, signing contracts, 
paying bills, and keeping the books. 

For the last three weeks little had been done. The 
crop — such as it was — had been harvested and sold, and 
there had been a general relaxation of activity for up- 
wards of a month. Now, however, the fall was coming 
on, the dry season was about at its end; any time after 
the twentieth of the month the first rains might be ex- 
pected, softening the ground, putting it into condition 
for the plough. Two days before this, Harran had noti- 
fied his superintendents on Three and Four to send ^ 
such grain as they had reserved for seed. On Two tiie 
wheat had not even shown itself above the ground, while 
on One, the Home ranch, which was under his own im- 
mediate supervision, the seed had already been graded 
and selected. 

It was Harran’s intention to commence blue-stoning 
his seed that day, a delicate and important process 


53 


A Story of California 

which prevented rust and smut appearing in the crop 
when the wheat should come up. But, furthermore, he 
wanted to find time to go to Guadalajara to meet the 
Governor on the morning train. His day promised to 
be busy. 

But as Harran was finishing his last cup of coffee, 
Phelps, the foreman on the Home ranch, who also looked 
after the storage barns where the seed was kept, pre- 
sented himself, cap in hand, on the back porch by the 
kitchen door. 

I thought Fd speak to you about the seed from Four, 
sir,” he said. “ That hasn't been brought in yet.” 

Harran nodded. 

“ I'll see about it. You've got all the blue-stone you 
want, have you, Phelps?'' and without waiting for an 
answer he added, Tell the stableman I shall want the 
team about nine o’clock to go to Guadalajara. Put them 
in the buggy. The bays, you understand.'' 

When the other had gone, Harran drank off the rest 
of his coffee, and, rising, passed through the dining-room 
and across a stone-paved hallway with a glass roof into 
the office just beyond. 

The office was the nerve-centre of the entire ten thou- 
sand acres of Los Muertos, but its appearance and fur- 
nishings were not in the least suggestive of a farm. It 
was divided at about its middle by a wire railing, painted 
green and gold, and behind this railing were the high 
desks where the books were kept, the safe, the letter- 
press and letter-files, and Harran's typewriting machine. 
A great map of Los Muertos with every water-course, 
depression, and elevation, together with indications of 
the varying depths of the clays and loams in the soil, ac- 
curately plotted, hung against the wall between the win- 
dows, while near at hand by the safe was the telephone. 

But, no doubt, the most significant object in the office 


54 


The Octopus 

was the ticker. This was an innovation in the San Joa 
quin, an idea of shrewd, quick-witted young Annixter, 
which Harran and Magnus Derrick had been quick to 
adopt, and after them Broderson and Osterman, and 
many others of the wheat growers of the county. The 
offices of the ranches were thus connected by wire with 
San Francisco, and through that city with Minneapolis, 
Duluth, Chicago, New York, and at last, and most im- 
portant of all, with Liverpool. Fluctuations in the price 
of the world's crop during and after the harvest thrilled 
straight to the office of Los Muertos, to that of the 
Quien Sabe, to Osterman's, and to Broderson's. Dur- 
ing a flurry in the Chicago wheat pits in the August of 
that year, which had affected even the San Francisco 
market, Harran and Magnus had sat up nearly half of one 
night watching the strip of white tape jerking unsteadily 
from the reel. At such moments they no longer felt 
their individuality. The ranch became merely the part 
of an enormous whole, a unit in the vast agglomera- 
tion of wheat land the whole world round, feeling the 
effects of causes thousands of miles distant — a drought 
on the prairies of Dakota, a rain on the plains of India, 
a frost on the Russian steppes, a hot wind on the llanos 
of the Argentine. 

Harran crossed over to the telephone and rang six 
bells, the call for the division house on Four. It was the 
most distant, the most isolated point on all the ranch, 
situated at its far southeastern extremity, where few 
people ever went, close to the line fence, a dot, a speck, 
lost in the immensity of the open country. By the road 
it was eleven miles distant from the office, and by the 
trail to Hooven's and the Lower Road all of nine. 

“ How about that seed? ” demanded Harran when he 
had got Cutter on the line. 

The other made excuses for an unavoidable delay, and 


A Story of California 55 

was adding that he was on the point of starting out, when 
Harran cut in with: 

“ You had better go the trail. It will save a little 
time and I am in a hurry. Put your sacks on the horses^ 
backs. And, Cutter, if you see Hooven when you go by 
his place, tell him I want him, and, by the way, take a 
look at the end of the irrigating ditch when you get to 
it. See how they are getting along there and if Billy 
wants anything. Tell him we are expecting those new 
scoops down to-morrow or next day and to get along 
with what he has until then. . . . How^s everything 

on Four? . . . All right, then. Give your seed to 
Phelps when you get here if I am not about. I am going 
to Guadalajara to meet the Governor. He^s coming 
down to-day. And that makes me think; we lost the 
case, you know. I had a letter from the Governor 
yesterday. . . . Yes, hard luck. S. Behrman did us 
up. Well, good-bye, and don^t lose any time with that 
seed. I want to blue-stone to-day.” 

After telephoning Cutter, Harran put on his hat, went 
over to the barns, and found Phelps. Phelps had al- 
ready cleaned out the vat which was to contain the solu- 
tion of blue-stone, and was now at work regrading the 
seed. Against the wall behind him ranged the row of 
sacks. Harran cut the fastenings of these and examined 
the contents carefully, taking handfuls of wheat from 
each and allowing it to run through his fingers, or nip- 
ping the grains between his nails, testing their hard- 
ness. 

The seed was all of the white varieties of wheat and 
of a very high grade, the berries hard and heavy, rigid 
and swollen with starch. 

** If it was all like that, sir, hey? ” observed Phelps. 

Harran put his chin in the air. 

“ Bread would be as good as cake, then,” he answered, 


56 


The Octopus 

going from sack to sack, inspecting the contents and 
consulting the tags affixed to the mouths. 

“ Hello,” he remarked, '' here's a red wheat. Where 
did this come from? ” 

That’s that red Clawson we sowed to the piece on 
Four, north the Mission Creek, just to see how it would 
do here. We didn’t get a very good catch.” 

‘‘ We can’t do better than to stay by White Sonora and 
Propo,” remarked Harran. We’ve got our best re- 
sults with that, and European millers like it to mix with 
the Eastern wheats that have more gluten than ours. 
That is, if we have any wheat at all next year.” 

A feeling of discouragement for the moment bore 
down heavily upon him. At intervals this came to him 
and for the moment it was overpowering. The idea 
of “ what’s-the-use ” was upon occasion a veritable op- 
pression. Everything seemed to combine to lower the 
price of wheat. The extension of wheat areas always 
exceeded increase of population; competition was grow- 
ing fiercer every year. The farmer’s profits were the 
object of attack from a score of different quarters. It 
was a flock of vultures descending upon a common prey 
— the commission merchant, the elevator combine, the 
mixing-house ring, the banks, the warehouse men, the 
labouring man, and, above all, the railroad. Steadily 
the Liverpool buyers cut and cut and cut. Everything, 
every element of the world’s markets, tended to force 
down the price to the lowest possible figure at which it 
could be profitably farmed. Now it was down to eighty- 
seven. It was at that figure the crop had sold that year; 
and to think that the Governor had seen wheat at two 
dollars and five cents in the year of the Turko-Russian 
War! 

He turned back to the house after giving Phelps final 
directions, gloomy, disheartened, his hands deep in his 


57 


A Story of California 

pockets, wondering what was to be the outcome. So 
narrow had the margin of profit shrunk that a dry season 
meant bankruptcy to the smaller farmers throughout all 
the valley. He knew very well how widespread had been 
the distress the last two years. With their own tenants 
on Los Muertos, affairs had reached the stage of des- 
peration. Derrick had practically been obliged to 
“ carry ” Hooven and some of the others. The Gover- 
nor himself had made almost nothing during the last 
season; a third year like the last, with the price steadily 
sagging, meant nothing else but ruin. 

But here he checked himself. Two consecutive dry 
seasons in California were almost unprecedented; a third 
would be beyond belief, and the complete rest for nearly 
all the land was a compensation. They had made no 
money, that was true; but they had lost none. Thank 
God, the homestead was free of mortgage; one good sea- 
son would more than make up the difference. 

He was in a better mood by the time he reached the 
driveway that led up to the ranch house, and as he raised 
his eyes toward the house itself, he could not but feel that 
the sight of his home was cheering. The ranch house 
was set in a great grove of eucalyptus, oak, and cypress, 
enormous trees growing from out a lawn that was as 
green, as fresh, and as well-groomed as any in a garden 
in the city. This lawn flanked all one side of the house, 
and it was on this side that the family elected to spend 
most of its time. The other side, looking out upon the 
Home ranch toward Bonneville and the railroad, was but 
little used. A deep porch ran the whole length of the 
house here, and in the lower branches of a live-oak near 
the steps Harran had built a little summer house for his 
mother. To the left of the ranch house itself, toward 
the County Road, was the bunk-house and kitchen for 
some of the hands. From the steps of the porch the 


58 


The Octopus 

view to the southward expanded to infinity. There was 
not so much as a twig to obstruct the view. In one leap 
the eye reached the fine, delicate line where earth and 
sky met, miles away. The flat monotony of the land, 
clean of fencing, w^as broken by one spot only, the roof 
of the Division Superintendent’s house on Three — a mere 
speck, just darker than the ground. Cutter’s house on 
Four was not even in sight. That was below the 
horizon. 

As Harran came up he saw his mother at breakfast. 
The table had been set on the porch and Mrs. Derrick, 
stirring her coffee with one hand, held open with the 
other the pages of Walter Pater’s ‘‘ Marius.” At her 
feet. Princess Nathalie, the white Angora cat, sleek, 
over-fed, self-centred, sat on her haunches, industriously 
licking at the white fur of her breast, while neai at hand, 
by the railing of the porch, Presley pottered with a new 
bicycle lamp, filling it with oil, adjusting the wicks. 

Harran kissed his mother and sat down in a wicker 
chair on the porch, removing his hat, running his fingers 
through his yellow hair. 

Magnus Derrick’s wife looked hardly old enough to 
be the mother of two such big fellows as Harran and 
Lyman Derrick. She was not far into the fifties, and 
her brown hair still retained much of its brightness. She 
could yet be called pretty. Her eyes were large and 
easily assumed a look of inquiry and innocence, such as 
one might expect to see in a young girl. By disposition 
she was retiring; she easily obliterated herself. She was 
not made for the harshness of the world, and yet she had 
known these harshnesses in her younger days. Magnus 
had married her when she was twenty-one years old, at 
a time when she was a graduate of some years’ standing 
from the State Normal School and was teaching litera- 
ture, music, and penmanship in a seminary in the town 


A Story of California 


59 


of Marysville. She overworked herself here continu- 
ally, loathing the strain of teaching, yet clinging to it 
with a tenacity born of the knowledge that it was her 
only means of support. Both her parents were dead; 
she was dependent upon herself. Her one ambition was 
to see Italy and the Bay of Naples. The “ Marble 
Faun,^’ Raphael’s “ Madonnas ” and II Trovatore ” 
were her beau ideals of literature and art. She dreamed 
of Italy, Rome, Naples, and the world’s great art- 
centres.” There was no doubt that her affair with Mag- 
nus had been a love-match, but Annie Payne would have 
loved any man who would have taken her out of the 
droning, heart-breaking routine of the class and music 
room. She had followed his fortunes unquestioningly. 
First at Sacramento, during the turmoil of his political 
career, later on at Placerville in El Dorado County, after 
Derrick had interested himself in the Corpus Christi 
group of mines, and finally at Los Muertos, where, after 
selling out his fourth interest in Corpus Christi, he had 
turned rancher and had “ come in ” on the new tracts 
of wheat land just thrown open by the railroad. She 
had lived here now for nearly ten years. But never for 
one moment since the time her glance first lost itself in 
the unbroken immensity of the ranches had she known 
a moment’s content. Continually there came into her 
pretty, wide-open eyes — the eyes of a young doe — a look 
of uneasiness, of distrust, and aversion. Los Muertos 
frightened her. She remembered the days of her young 
girlhood passed on a farm in eastern Ohio — five hundred 
acres, neatly partitioned into the water lot, the cow pas- 
ture, the corn lot, the barley field, and wheat farm ; cosey, 
comfortable, home-like; where the farmers loved their 
land, caressing it, coaxing it, nourishing it as though it 
were a thing almost conscious ; where the seed was sown 
by hand, and a single two-horse plough was sufficient 


6o 


The Octopus 

for the entire farm; where the scythe sufficed to cut the 
harvest and the grain was thrashed with flails. 

But this new order of things — a ranch bounded only 
by the horizons, where, as far as one could see, to the 
north, to the east, to the south and to the west, was all 
one holding, a principality ruled with iron and steam, 
bullied into a yield of three hundred and fifty thousand 
bushels, where even when the land was resting, un- 
ploughed, unharrowed, and unsown, the wheat came up 
— troubled her, and even at times filled her with an un- 
definable terror. To her mind there was something in- 
ordinate about it all ; something almost unnatural. The 
direct brutality of ten thousand acres of wheat, nothing 
but wheat as far as the eye could see, stunned her a little. 
The one-time writing-teacher of a young ladies’ semi- 
nary, with her pretty deer-like eyes and delicate fingers, 
shrank from it. She did not want to look at so much 
wheat. There was something vaguely indecent in the 
sight, this food of the people, this elemental force, this 
basic energy, weltering here under the sun in all the un- 
conscious nakedness of a sprawling, primordial Titan. 

The monotony of the ranch ate into her heart hour by 
hour, year by year. And with it all, when was she to see 
Rome, Italy, and the Bay of Naples ? It was a different 
prospect truly. Magnus had given her his promise that 
once the ranch was well established, they two should 
travel. But continually he had been obliged to put her 
off, now for one reason, now for another ; the machine 
would not as yet run of itself, he must still feel his hand 
upon the lever ; next year, perhaps, when wheat should 
go to ninety, or the rains were good. She did not insist. 
She obliterated herself, only allowing, from time to time, 
her pretty, questioning eyes to meet his. In the mean- 
time she retired within herself. She surrounded herself 
with books. Her taste was of the delicacy of point lace. 


A Story of California 


6i 


She knew her Austin Dobson by heart. She read poems, 
essays, the ideas of the seminary at Marysville per- 
sisting in her mind. Marius the Epicurean,” “ The 
Essays of Elia,” Sesame and Lilies,” “ The Stones of 
Venice,” and the little toy magazines, full of the flaccid 
banalities of the ** Minor Poets,” were continually in her 
hands. 

When Presley had appeared on Los Muertos, she had 
welcomed his arrival with delight. Here at last was a 
congenial spirit. She looked forward to long conversa- 
tions with the young man on literature, art, and ethics. 
But Presley had disappointed her. That he — outside of 
his few chosen deities — should care little for literature, 
shocked her beyond words. His indifference to “ style,” 
to elegant English, was a positive affront. His savage 
abuse and open ridicule of the neatly phrased rondeaux 
and sestinas and chansonettes of the little magazines was 
to her mind a wanton and uncalled-for cruelty. She 
found his Homer, with its slaughters and hecatombs 
and barbaric feastings and headstrong passions, violent 
and coarse. She could not see with him any romance, 
any poetry in the life around her ; she looked to Italy for 
that. His Song of the West,” which only once, inco- 
herent and fierce, he had tried to explain to her, its swift, 
tumultuous life, its truth, its nobility and savagery, its 
heroism and obscenity, had revolted her. 

But, Presley,” she had murmured, “ that is not lit- 
erature.” 

‘‘ No,” he had cried between his teeth, “ no, thank 
God, it is not.” 

A little later, one of the stablemen brought the buggy 
with the team of bays up to the steps of the porch, and 
Harran, putting on a different coat and a black hat, took 
himself off to Guadalajara. 

The morning was fine ; there was no cloud in the sky, 


62 


The Octopus 

but as Harran’s buggy drew away from the grove ol 
trees about the ranch house, emerging into the open 
country on either side of the Lower Road, he caught 
himself looking sharply at the sky and the faint line of 
hills beyond the Quien Sabe ranch. There was a certain 
indefinite cast to the landscape that to Harran’s eye was 
not to be mistaken. Rain, the first of the season, was 
not far off. 

“That’s good,” he muttered, touching the bays with the 
whip, “ we can’t get our ploughs to hand any too soon.” 

These ploughs Magnus Derrick had ordered from an 
Eastern manufacturer some months before, since he was 
dissatisfi%4^ith the results obtained from the ones he 
had used hitherto, which were of local make. However, 
there had been exasperating and unexpected delays in 
their shipment. Magnus and Harran both had counted 
upon having the ploughs in their implement barns that 
very week, but a tracer sent after them had only resulted 
in locating them, still en route, somewhere between The 
Needles and Bakersfield. Now there was likelihood of 
rain within the week. Ploughing could be undertaken 
immediately afterward, so soon as the ground was 
softened, but there was a fair chance that the ranch 
would lie idle for want of proper machinery. 

It was ten minutes before train time when Harran 
reached the depot at Guadalajara. The San Francisco 
papers of the preceding day had arrived on an earlier 
train. He bought a couple from the station agent and 
looked them over till a distant and prolonged whistle 
announced the approach of the down train. 

In one of the four passengers that alighted from the 
train, he recognised his father. He half rose in his seat, 
whistling shrilly between his teeth, waving his hand, and 
Magnus Derrick, catching sight of him, came forward 
quickly, 


63 


A Story of California 

Magnus — the Governor — was all of six feet tall, and 
though now well toward his sixtieth year, was as erect 
as an officer of cavalry. He was broad in proportion, a 
fine commanding figure, imposing an immediate respect, 
impressing one with a sense of gravity, of dignity and a 
certain pride of race. He was smooth-shaven, thin- 
lipped, with a broad chin, and a prominent hawk-like 
nose — the characteristic of the family — thin, with a high 
bridge, such as one sees in the later portraits of the Duke 
of Wellington. His hair was thick and iron-grey, and 
had a tendency to curl in a forward direction just in front 
of his ears. He wore a top-hat of grey, with a wide brim, 
and a frock coat, and carried a cane with a yellowed 
ivory head. 

As a young man it had been his ambition to represent 
his native State — North Carolina — in the United States 
Senate. Calhoun was his great man,” but in two suc- 
cessive campaigns he had been defeated. His career 
checked in this direction, he had come to California in 
the fifties. He had known and had been the intimate 
friend of such men as Terry, Broderick, General Baker, 
Lick, Alvarado, Emerich, Larkin, and, above all, of the 
unfortunate and misunderstood Ralston. Once he had 
been put forward as the Democratic candidate for gov- 
ernor, but failed of election. After this Magnus had 
definitely abandoned politics and had invested all his 
money in the Corpus Christi mines. Then he had sold 
out his interest at a small profit — ^just in time to miss his 
chance of becoming a multi-millionaire in the Comstock 
boom — and was looking for reinvestments in other lines 
when the news that wheat had been discovered in Cali- 
fornia ” was passed from mouth to mouth. Practically 
it amounted to a discovery. Dr. Glenn’s first harvest of 
wheat in Colusa County, quietly undertaken but sud- 
denly realised with dramatic abruptness, gave a new mat- 


64 


The Octopus 


ter for reflection to the thinking men of the New West. 
California suddenly leaped unheralded into the world’s 
market as a competitor in wheat production. In a few 
years her output of wheat exceeded the value of her out- 
put of gold, and when, later on, the Pacific and South- 
western Railroad threw open to settlers the rich lands 
of Tulare County — conceded to the corporation by the 
government as a bonus for the construction of the road 
— Magnus had been quick to seize the opportunity and 
had taken up the ten thousand acres of Los Muertos. 
Wherever he had gone, Magnus had taken his family 
with him. Lyman had been born at Sacramento during 
the turmoil and excitement of Derrick’s campaign for 
governor, and Harran at Shingle Springs, in El Dorado 
County, six years later. 

But Magnus was in every sense the “ prominent man.” 
In whatever circle he moved he was the chief figure. In- 
stinctively other men looked to him as the leader. He 
himself was proud of this distinction; he assumed the 
grand manner very easily and carried it well. As a pub- 
lic speaker he was one of the last of the followers of the 
old school of orators. Pie even carried the diction and 
manner of the rostrum into private life. It was said of 
him that his most colloquial conversation could be taken 
down in shorthand and read off as an admirable speci- 
men of pure, well-chosen English. He loved to do things 
upon a grand scale, to preside, to dominate. In his 
good humour there was something Jovian. When angry, 
everybody around him trembled. But he had not the 
genius for detail, was not patient. The certain grandi- 
ose lavishness of his disposition occupied itself more 
with results than with means. He was always ready to 
take chances, to hazard everything on the hopes of 
colossal returns. In the mining days at Placerville there 
was no more redoubtable poker player in the county. 


65 


A Story of California 

He had been as lucky in his mines as in his gambling, 
sinking shafts and tunnelling in violation of expert 
theory and finding “ pay ” in every case. Without know- 
ing it, he allowed himself to work his ranch much as if 
he was still working his mine. The old-time spirit of 
^49, hap-hazard, unscientific, persisted in his mind. 
Everything was a gamble — who took the greatest 
chances was most apt to be the greatest winner. The 
idea of manuring Los Muertos, of husbanding his great 
resources, he would have scouted as niggardly, He- 
braic, ungenerous. 

Magnus climbed into the buggy, helping himself with 
Harran^s outstretched hand which he still held. The 
two were immensely fond of each other, proud of each 
other. They were constantly together and Magnus kept 
no secrets from his favourite son. 

‘‘ Well, boy.’’ 

Well, Governor.” 

** I am very pleased you came yourself, Harran. I 
feared that you might be too busy and send Phelps. It 
was thoughtful.” 

Harran was about to reply, but at that moment Mag- 
nus caught sight of the three flat cars loaded with bright- 
painted farming machines which still remained on the 
siding above the station. He laid his hands on the reins 
and Harran checked the team. 

“ Harran,” observed Magnus, fixing the machinery 
with a judicial frown, “ Harran, those look singularly 
like our ploughs. Drive over, boy.” 

The train had by this time gone on its way and Har- 
ran brought the team up to the siding. 

“ Ah, I was right,” said the Governor. “ ‘ Magnus 
Derrick, Los Muertos, Bonneville, from Ditson & Co., 
Rochester.’ These are ours, boy.” 

Harran breathed a sigh of relief. 


66 


The Octopus 

At last/' he answered, “ and just in time, too. We'll 
have rain before the week is out. I think, now that I am 
here, I will telephone Phelps to send the wagon right 
down for these. I started blue-stoning to-day." 

Magnus nodded a grave approval. 

That was shrewd, boy. As to the rain, I think you 
are well informed; we will have an early season. The 
ploughs have arrived at a happy moment." 

“ It means money to us. Governor," remarked Harran. 

But as he turned the horses to allow his father to get 
into the buggy again, the two were surprised to hear a 
thick, throaty voice wishing them good-morning, and 
turning about were aware of S. Behrman, who had come 
up while they were examining the ploughs. Harran's 
eyes flashed on the instant and through his nostrils he 
drew a sharp, quick breath, while a certain rigour of car- 
riage stiffened the set of Magnus Derrick's shoulders 
and back. Magnus had not yet got into the buggy, but 
stood with the team between him and S. Behrman, eye- 
ing him calmly across the horses' backs. S. Behrman 
came around to the other side of the buggy and faced 
Magnus. 

He was a large, fat man, with a great stomach; his 
cheek and the upper part of his thick neck ran together 
to form a great tremulous jowl, shaven and blue-grey in 
colour; a roll of fat, sprinkled with sparse hair, moist 
with perspiration, protruded over the back of his collar. 
He wore a heavy black moustache. On his head was a 
round-topped hat of stiff brown straw, highly varnished. 
A light-brown linen vest, stamped with innumerable in- 
terlocked horseshoes, covered his protuberant stomach, 
upon which a heavy watch chain of hollow links rose 
and fell with his difficult breathing, clinking against the 
vest buttons of imitation mother-of-pearl. 

S. Behrman was the banker of Bonneville. But be- 


67 


A Story of California 

sides this he was many other things. He was a real 
estate agent. He bought grain ; he dealt in mortgages. 
He was one of the local political bosses, but more im- 
portant than all this, he was the representative of the 
Pacific and Southwestern Railroad in that section of 
Tulare County. The railroad did little business in that 
part of the country that S. Behrman did not supervise, 
from the consignment of a shipment of wheat to the 
management of a damage suit, or even to the repair 
and maintenance of the right of way. During the time 
when the ranchers of the county were fighting the grain- 
rate case, S. Behrman had been much in evidence in 
and about the San Francisco court rooms and the lobby 
of the legislature in Sacramento. He had returned to 
Bonneville only recently, a decision adverse to the 
ranchers being foreseen. The position he occupied on 
the salary list of the Pacific and Southwestern could not 
readily be defined, for he was neither freight agent, pas- 
senger agent, attorney, real-estate broker, nor political 
servant, though his influence in all these offices was un- 
doubted and enormous. But for all that, the ranchers 
about Bonneville knew whom to look to as a source of 
trouble. There was no denying the fact that for Oster- 
man, Broderson, Annixter and Derrick, S. Behrman was 
the railroad. 

Mr. Derrick, good-morning,’" he cried as he came 
up. Good-morning, Harran. Glad to see you back, 
Mr. Derrick.” He held out a thick hand. 

Magnus, head and shoulders above the other, tall, 
thin, erect, looked down upon S. Behrman, indining 
his head, failing to see his extended hand. 

“ Good-morning, sir,” he observed, and waited for S. 
Behrman’s further speech. 

“ Well, Mr. Derrick,” continued S. Behrman, wiping 
the back of his neck with his handkerchief, I saw in the 


68 The Octopus 

city papers yesterday that our case had gone against 
you.” 

I guess it wasn’t any great news to you,” commented 
Harran, his face scarlet. I guess you knew which way 
Ulsteen was going to jump after your very first inter- 
view with him. You don’t like to be surprised in this 
sort of thing, S. Behrman.” 

Now, you know better than that, Harran,” remon- 
strated S. Behrman blandly. “ I know what you mean 
to imply, but I ain’t going to let it make me get mad. 
I wanted to say to your Governor — I wanted to say to 
you, Mr. Derrick — as one man to another — ^letting alone 
for the minute that we were on opposite sides of the case 
— that I’m sorry you didn’t win. Your side made a good 
fight, but it was in a mistaken cause. That’s the whole 
trouble. Why, you could have figured out before you 
ever went into the case that such rates are confiscation 
of property. You must allow us — must allow the rail- 
road — a fair interest on the investment. You don’t 
want us to go into the receiver’s hands, do you now, Mr. 
Derrick ? ” 

'' The Board of Railroad Commissioners was bought,” 
remarked Magnus sharply, a keen, brisk flash glinting 
in his eye. 

“ It was part of the game,” put in Harran, “ for the 
Railroad Commission to cut rates to a ridiculous fig- 
ure, far below a reasonable figure, just so that it would be 
confiscation. Whether Ulsteen is a tool of yours or not, 
he had to put the rates back to what they were orig- 
inally.” 

“ If you enforced those rates, Mr. Harran,” returned 
S. Behrman calmly, “ we wouldn’t be able to earn suf- 
ficient money to meet operating expenses or fixed 
charges, to say nothing of a surplus left over to pay 
dividends ” 


A Story of California 69 

“ Tell me when the P. and S. W. ever paid divi- 
dends.” 

“ The lowest rates,” continued S. Behrman, that the 
legislature can establish must be such as will secure us a 
fair interest on our investment.” 

“Well, what’s your standard? Come, let’s hear it. 
Who is to say what’s a fair rate? The railroad has its 
own notions of fairness sometimes.” 

“ The laws of the State,” returned S. Behrman, “ fix 
the rate of interest at seven per cent. That’s a good 
enough standard for us. There is no reason, Mr. Har- 
ran, why a dollar invested in a railroad should not earn 
as much as a dollar represented by a promissory note — 
seven per cent. By applying your schedule of rates we 
would not earn a cent ; we would be bankrupt.” 

“ Interest on your investment !” cried Harran, furious. 
“ It’s fine to talk about fair interest. I know and you 
know that the total earnings of the P. and S. W. — their 
main, branch and leased lines for last year — was between 
nineteen and twenty millions of dollars. Do you mean 
to say that twenty million dollars is seven per cent, of the 
original cost of the road? ” 

S. Behrman spread out his hands, smiling. 

“ That was the gross, not the net figure — and how can 
you tell what was the original cost of the road?” 

“ Ah, that’s just it,” shouted Harran, emphasising 
each word with a blow of his fist upon his knee, his eyes 
sparkling, “ you take cursed good care that we don’t 
know anything about the original cost of the road. But 
we know you are bonded for treble your value ; and we 
know this : that the road could have been built for fifty- 
four thousand dollars per mile and that you say it cost 
you eighty-seven thousand. It makes a difference, S. 
Behrman, on which of these two figures you are basing 
your seven per cent.” 


70 


The Octopus 


“ That all may show obstinacy, Harran,” observed S. 
Behrman vaguely, but it don’t show common sense.” 

“ We are threshing out old straw, I believe, gentle- 
men,” remarked Magnus. “ The question was thor- 
oughly sifted in the courts.” 

“ Quite right,” assented S. Behrman. “ The best way 
is that the railroad and the farmer understand each other 
and get along peaceably. We are both dependent on 
each other. Your ploughs, I believe, Mr. Derrick.” 
S. Behrman nodded toward the flat cars. 

“ They are consigned to me,” admitted Magnus. 

“ It looks a trifle like rain,” observed S. Behrman, 
easing his neck and jowl in his limp collar. ‘‘ I suppose 
you will want to begin ploughing next week.” 

Possibly,” said Magnus. 

“ I’ll see that your ploughs are hurried through for you 
then, Mr. Derrick. We will route them by fast freight 
for you and it won’t cost you anything extra.” 

What do you mean ? ” demanded Harran. “ The 
ploughs are here. We have nothing more to do with the 
railroad. I am going to have my wagons down here this 
afternoon.” 

‘‘ I am sorry,” answered S. Behrman, “ but the cars 
are going north, not, as you thought, coming from the 
north. They have not been to San Francisco yet.” 

Magnus made a slight movement of the head as one 
who remembers a fact hitherto forgotten. But Harran 
was as yet unenlightened. 

To San Francisco ! ” he answered, we want them 
here — what are you talking about ? ” 

"‘Well, you know, of course, the regulations,” an- 
swered S. Behrman. “ Freight of this kind coming from 
the Eastern points into the State must go first to one of 
our common points and be reshipped from there.” 

Harran did remember now, but never before had the 


7 * 


A Story of California 

matter so struck home. He leaned back in his seat in 
dumb amazement for the instant. Even Magnus had 
turned a little pale. Then, abruptly, Harran broke out 
violent and raging. 

“ What next ? My God, why don’t you break into our 
houses at night ? Why don’t you steal the watch out of 
my pocket, steal the horses out of the harness, hold us up 
with a shot-gun; yes, ‘ stand and deliver; your money or 
your life.’ Here we bring our ploughs from the East over 
your lines, but you’re not content with your long-haul 
rate between Eastern points and Bonneville. You want 
to get us under your ruinous short-haul rate between 
Bonneville and San Francisco, and return. Think of it ! 
Here’s a load of stuff for Bonneville that can’t stop at 
Bonneville, where it is consigned, but has got to go up to 
San Francisco first hy way of Bonneville, at forty cents 
per ton and then be reshipped from San Francisco back 
to Boi;neville again at fifty-one cents per ton, the short- 
haul rate. And we have to pay it all or go without. 
Here are the ploughs right here, in sight of the land they 
have got to be used on, the season just ready for them, 
and we can’t touch them. Oh,” he exclaimed in deep 
disgust, isn’t it a pretty mess ! Isn’t it a farce ! the 
whole dirty business ! ” 

S. Behrman listened to him unmoved, his little eyes 
blinking under his fat forehead, the gold chain of hollow 
links clicking against the pearl buttons of his waistcoat 
as he breathed. 

“ It don’t do any good to let loose like that, Harran,” 
he said at length. “ I am willing to do what I can for 
you. I’ll hurry the ploughs through, but I can’t change 
the freight regulation of the road.” 

What’s your blackmail for this ? ” vociferated Har- 
ran. “ How much do you want to let us go ? How 
much have we got to pay you to be allowed to use 


72 The Octopus 

our own ploughs — what’s your figure? Come, spit it 
out.” 

I see you are trying to make me angry, Harran,” 
returned S. Behrman, “ but you won’t succeed. Better 
give up trying, my boy. As I said, the best way is to 
have the railroad and the farmer get along amicably. It 
is the only way we can do business. Well, s’long. Gov- 
ernor, I must trot along. S’long, Harran.” He took 
himself off. 

But before leaving Guadalajara Magnus dropped into 
the town’s small grocery store to purchase a box of 
cigars of a certain Mexican brand, unprocurable else- 
where. Harran remained in the buggy. 

While he waited. Dyke appeared at the end of the 
street, and, seeing Derrick’s younger son, came over to 
shake hands with him. He explained his affair with the 
P. and S. W., and asked the young man what he thought 
of the expected rise in the price of hops. 

“ Hops ought to be a good thing,” Harran told him. 

The crop in Germany and in New York has been a dead 
failure for the last three years, and so many people have 
gone out of the business that there’s likely to be a 
shortage and a stiff advance in the price. They ought to 
go to a dollar next year. Sure, hops ought to be a good 
thing. How’s the old lady and Sidney, Dyke ? ” 

Why, fairly well, thank you, Harran. They’re up to 
Sacramento just now to see my brother. I was think- 
ing of going in with my brother into this hop business. 
But I had a letter from him this morning. He may not 
be able to meet me on this proposition. He’s got other 
business on hand. If he pulls out — and he probably will 
— ^ril have to go it alone, but I’ll have to borrow. I had 
thought with his money and mine we would have enough 
to pull off the affair without mortgaging anything. As 
it is, I guess I’ll have to see S. Behrman.” 


73 


A Story of California 

“ 111 be cursed if I would ! ” exclaimed Harran. 

‘‘Well, S. Behrman is a screw, admitted the engi- 
neer, “ and he is ‘ railroad ^ to his boots ; but business is 
business, and he would have to stand by a contract in 
black and white, and this chance in hops is too good to 
let slide. I guess we’ll try it on, Harran. I can get a 
good foreman that knows all about hops just now, and 
if the deal pays — well, I want to send Sid to a seminary 
up in San Francisco.” 

“ Well, mortgage the crops, but don’t mortgage the 
homestead. Dyke,” said Harran. “ And, by the way, 
have you looked up the freight rates on hops ? ” 

“ No, I haven’t yet,” answered Dyke, “ and I had bet- 
ter be sure of that, hadn’t I I hear that the rate is rea- 
sonable, though.” 

“ You be sure to have a clear understanding with the 
railroad first about the rate,” Harran warned him. 

When Magnus came out of the grocery store and once 
more seated himself in the buggy, he said to Harran, 
“ Boy, drive over here to Annixter’s before we start 
home. I want to ask him to dine with us to-night. 
Osterman and Broderson are to drop in, I believe, and I 
should like to have Annixter as well.” 

Magnus was lavishly hospitable. Los Muertos’s doors 
invariably stood open to all the Derricks’ neighbours, 
and once in so often Magnus had a few of his intimates to 
dinner. 

As Harran and his father drove along the road toward 
Annixter’s ranch house, Magnus asked about what had 
happened during his absence. 

He inquired after his wife and the ranch, commenting 
upon the work on the irrigating ditch. Harran gave him 
the news of the past week. Dyke’s discharge, his resolve 
to raise a crop of hops ; Vanamee’s return, the killing of 
the sheep, and Hooven’s petition to remain upon the 


74 


The Octopus 


ranch as Magnus’s tenant. It needed only Harran’s rec- 
ommendation that the German should remain to have 
Magnus consent upon the instant. 

You know more about it than I, boy,” he said, and 
whatever you think is wise shall be done.” 

Harran touched the bays with the whip, urging them 
to their briskest pace. They were not yet at Annixter’s 
and he was anxious to get back to the ranch house to 
supervise the blue-stoning of his seed. 

“ By the way. Governor,” he demanded suddenly, 
how is Lyman getting on? ” 

Lyman, Magnus’s eldest son, had never taken kindly 
toward ranch life. He resembled his mother more than 
he did Magnus, and had inherited from her a distaste for 
agriculture and a tendency toward a profession. At a 
time when Harran was learning the rudiments of farm- 
ing, Lyman wai> entering the State University, and, 
graduating thence, had spent three years in the study 
of law. But later on, traits that were particularly his 
father’s developed. Politics interested him. He told 
himself he was a born politician, was diplomatic, ap- 
proachable, had a talent for intrigue, a gift of making 
friends easily and, most indispensable of all, a veritable 
genius for putting influential men under obligations to 
himself. Already he had succeeded in gaining for him- 
self two important offices in the municipal administration 
of San Francisco — ^where he had his home — sheriff’s at- 
torney, and, later on, assistant district attorney. But 
with these small achievements he was by no means satis- 
fied. The largeness of his father’s character, modified 
in Lyman by a counter-influence of selfishness, had pro- 
duced in him an inordinate ambition. Where his father 
during his political career had considered himself only 
as an exponent of principles he strove to apply, Lyman 
saw but the office, his own personal aggrandisement. 


75 


A Story of California 

He belonged to the new school, wherein objects were 
attained not by orations before senates and assemblies, 
but by sessions of committees, caucuses, compromises 
and expedients. His goal was to be in fact what Magnus 
was only in name — governor. Lyman, with shut teeth, 
had resolved that some day he would sit in the guber- 
natorial chair in Sacramento. 

“ Lyman is doing well,” answered Magnus. I could 
wish he was more pronounced in his convictions, less 
willing to compromise, but I believe him to be earnest 
and to have a talent for government and civics. His 
ambition does him credit, and if he occupied himself a 
little more with means and a little less with ends, he 
would, I am sure, be the ideal servant of the people. 
But I am not afraid. The time will come when the State 
will be proud of him.” 

As Harran turned the team into the driveway that led 
up to Annixter’s house, Magnus remarked: 

“ Harran, isn’t that young Annixter himself on the 
porch? ” 

Harran nodded and remarked: 

“ By the way. Governor, I wouldn’t seem too cordial 
in your invitation to Annixter. He will be glad to come, 
I know, but if you seem to want him too much, it is just 
like his confounded obstinacy to make objections.” 

'' There is something in that,” observed Magnus, as 
Harran drew up at the porch of the house. “ He is a 
queer, cross-grained fellow, but in many ways sterling.” 

Annixter was lying in the hammock on the porch, pre- 
cisely as Presley had found him the day before, reading 
David Copperfield ” and stuffing himself with dried 
prunes. When he recognised Magnus, however, he got 
up, though careful to give evidence of the most poignant 
discomfort. He explained his difficulty at great length, 
protesting that his stomach was no better than a sponge- 


76 


The Octopus 

bag. Would Magnus and Harran get down and have 
a drink? There was whiskey somewhere about. 

Magnus, however, declined. He stated his errand, 
asking Annixter to come over to Los Muertos that even- 
ing for seven o’clock dinner. Osterman and Broderson 
would be there. 

At once Annixter, even to Harran’s surprise, put his 
chin in the air, making excuses, fearing to compromise 
himself if he accepted too readily. No, he did not think 
he could get around — was sure of it, in fact. There were 
certain businesses he had on hand that evening. He 
had practically made an appointment with a man at 
Bonneville; then, too, he was thinking of going up to 
San Francisco to-morrow and needed his sleep; would 
go to bed early; and besides all that, he was a very sick 
man; his stomach was out of whack; if he moved about 
it brought the gripes back. No, they must get along 
without him. 

Magnus, knowing with whom he had to deal, did not 
urge the point, being convinced that Annixter would 
argue over the affair the rest of the morning. He re- 
settled himself in the buggy and Harran gathered up 
the reins. 

Well,” he observed, “ you know your business best. 
Come if you can. We dine at seven.” 

“ I hear you are going to farm the whole of Los Muer- 
tos this season,” remarked Annixter, with a certain note 
of challenge in his voice. 

'‘We are thinking of it,” replied Magnus. 

Annixter grunted scornfully. 

“ Did you get the message I sent you by Presley?” 
he began. 

Tactless, blunt, and direct, Annixter was quite capable 
of calling even Magnus a fool to his face. But before 
he could proceed, S. Behrman in his single buggy turned 


A Story of California 77 

into the gate, and driving leisurely up to the porch 
halted on the other side of Magnus’s team. 

Good-morning, gentlemen,” he remarked, nodding 
to the two Derricks as though he had not seen them 
earlier in the day. Mr. Annixter, how do you do? ” 

‘^What in hell do you want?” demanded Annixter 
with a stare. 

S. Behrman hiccoughed slightly and passed a fat hand 
over his waistcoat. 

Why, not very much, Mr. Annixter,” he replied, 
ignoring the belligerency in the young ranchman’s voice, 
“ but I will have to lodge a protest against you, Mr. 
Annixter, in the matter of keeping your line fence in 
repair. The sheep were all over the track last night, 
this side the Long Trestle, and I am afraid they have seri- 
ously disturbed our ballast along there. We — the rail- 
road — can’t fence along our right of way. The farmers 
have the prescriptive right of that, so we have to look 
to you to keep your fence in repair. I am sorry, but I 
shall have to protest 

Annixter returned to the hammock and stretched him- 
self out in it to his full length, remarking tranquilly: 

Go to the devil! ” 

It is as much to your interest as to ours that the 
safety of the public ” 

** You heard what I said. Go to the devil! ” 

That all may show obstinacy, Mr. Annixter, but ” 

Suddenly Annixter jumped up again and came to the 
edge of the porch; his face flamed scarlet to the roots of 
his stiff yellow hair. He thrust out his jaw aggressively, 
clenching his teeth. 

“ You” he vociferated, “ I’ll tell you what you are. 
You’re a — a — a pip! ” 

To his mind it was the last insult, the most outrageous 
calumny. He had no worse epithet at his command. 


78 


The Octopus 

-may show obstinacy/’ pursued S. Behrman, bent 
upon finishing the phrase, “ but it don’t show common 
sense.” 

“ ril mend my fence, and then, again, maybe I 
won’t mend my fence,” shouted Annixter. “ I know 
what you mean — that wild engine last night. Well, 
you’ve no right to run at that speed in the town lim- 
its.” 

How the town limits? The sheep were this side the 
Long Trestle.” 

“ Well, that’s in the town limits of Guadalajara.” 

“ Why, Mr. Annixter, the Long Trestle is a goo’d two 
miles out of Guadalajara. 

Annixter squared himself, leaping to the chance of an 
argument. 

Two miles ! It’s not a mile and a quarter. Np, it’s 
not a mile. I’ll leave it to Magnus here.” 

“ Oh, I know nothing about it,” declared Magnus, re- 
fusing to be involved. 

“ Yes, you do. Yes, you do, too. Any fool knows 
how far it is from Guadalajara to the Long Trestle. It’s 
about five-eighths of a mile.” 

“ From the depot of the town,” remarked S. Behrman 
placidly, “ to the head of the Long Trestle is about two 
miles.” 

“ That’s a lie and you know it’s a lie,” shouted the 
other, furious at S. Behrman’s calmness, “ and I can 
prove it’s a lie. I’ve walked that distance on the Upper 
Road, and I know just how fast I walk, and if I can walk 
four miles in one hour ” 

Magnus and Harran drove on, leaving Annixter try- 
ing to draw S. Behrman into a wrangle. 

When at length S. Behrman as v/ell took himself away, 
Annixter returned to his hammock, finished the rest of 
his prunes and read another chapter of ‘‘ Copperfield.” 


A Story of California 79 

Then he put the book, open, over his face and went to 
sleep. 

An hour later, toward noon, his own terrific snoring 
woke him up suddenly, and he sat up, rubbing his face 
and blinking at the sunlight. There was a bad taste in his 
mouth from sleeping with it wide open, and going into 
the dining-room of the house, he mixed himself a drink 
of whiskey and soda and swallowed it in three great 
gulps. He told himself that he felt not only better but 
hungry, and pressed an electric button in the wall near 
the sideboard three times to let the kitchen — situated 
in a separate building near the ranch house — know that 
he was ready for his dinner. As he did so, an idea oc- 
curred to him. He wondered if Hilma Tree would 
bring up his dinner and wait on the table while he 
ate it. 

In connection with his ranch, Annixter ran a dairy 
farm on a very small scale, making just enough butter 
and cheese for the consumption of the ranch’s personnel. 
Old man Tree, his wife, and his daughter Hilma looked 
after the dairy. But there was not always work enough 
to keep the three of them occupied and Hilma at times 
made herself useful in other ways. As often as not she 
lent a hand in the kitchen, and two or three times a week 
she took her mother’s place in looking after Annixter’s 
house, making the beds, putting his room to rights, 
bringing his meals up from the kitchen. For the last 
summer she had been away visiting with relatives in one 
of the towns on the coast. But the week previous to 
this she had returned and Annixter had come upon her 
suddenly one day in the dairy, making cheese, the sleeves 
of her crisp blue shirt waist rolled back to her very 
shoulders. Annixter had carried away with him a clear- 
cut recollection of these smooth white arms of hers, 
bare to the shoulder, very round and cool and fresh. He 


8o 


The Octopus 

would not have believed that a girl so young should 
have had arms so big and perfect. To his surprise he 
found himself thinking of her after he had gone to bed 
that night, and in the morning when he woke he was 
bothered to know whether he had dreamed about 
Hilma’s fine white arms over night. Then abruptly he 
had lost patience with himself for being so occupied with 
the subject, raging and furious with all the breed of fee- 
males — a fine way for a man to waste his time. He 
had had his experience with the timid little creature in 
the glove-cleaning establishment in Sacramento. That 
was enough. Feemales! Rot! None of them in his, 
thank you. He had seen Hilma Tree give him a look in 
the dairy. Aha, he saw through her! She was trying 
to get a hold on him, was she? He would show her. 
Wait till he saw her again. He would send her about 
her business in a hurry. He resolved upon a terrible 
demeanour in the presence of the dairy girl — a great 
show of indifference, a fierce masculine nonchalance; and 
when, the next morning, she brought him his breakfast, 
he had been smitten dumb as soon as she entered the 
room, glueing his eyes upon his plate, his elbows close 
to his side, awkward, clumsy, overwhelmed with con- 
straint. 

While true to his convictions as a woman-hater and 
genuinely despising Hilma both as a girl and as an in- 
ferior, the idea of her worried him. Most of all, he was 
angry with himself because of his inane sheepishness 
when she was about. He at first had told himself that 
he was a fool not to be able to ignore her existence as 
hitherto, and then that he was a greater fool not to take 
advantage of his position. Certainly he had not the 
remotest idea of any affection, but Hilma was a fine 
looking girl. He imagined an affair with her. 

As he reflected ppon the matter now, scowling ab- 


A Story of California 


8i 


stractedly at the button of the electric bell, turning the 
whole business over in his mind, he remembered that 
to-day was butter-making day and that Mrs. Tree 
would be occupied in the dairy. That meant that Hilma 
would take her place. He turned to the mirror of the 
sideboard, scrutinising his reflection with grim disfavour. 
After a moment, rubbing the roughened surface of his 
chin the wrong way, he muttered to his image in the 
glass : 

“ What a mug ! Good Lord ! what a looking mug ! ’’ 
Then, after a moment’s silence, “ Wonder if that fool 
feemale will be up here to-day.” 

He crossed over into his bedroom and peeped around 
the edge of the lowered curtain. The window looked 
out upon the skeleton-like tower of the artesian well and 
the cook-house and dairy-house close beside it. As he 
watched, he saw Hilma come out from the cook-house 
and hurry across toward the kitchen. Evidently, she 
was going to see about his dinner. But as she passed by 
the artesian well, she met young Delaney, one of Annix- 
ter’s hands, coming up the trail by the irrigating ditch, 
leading his horse toward the stables, a great coil of 
barbed wire in his gloved hands and a pair of nippers 
thrust into his belt. No doubt, he had been mending the 
break in the line fence by the Long Trestle. Annixter 
saw him take off his wide-brimmed hat as he met Hilma, 
and the two stood there for some moments talking to- 
gether. Annixter even heard Hilma laughing very gayly 
at something Delaney was saying. She patted his horse’s 
neck affectionately, and Delaney, drawing the nippers 
from his belt, made as if to pinch her arm with them. 
She caught at his wrist and pushed him away, laughing 
again. To Annixter’s mind the pair seemed astonish- 
ingly intimate. Brusquely his anger flamed up. 

Ah, that was it, was it? Delaney and Hilma had an 
6 


82 


The Octopus 


understanding between themselves. They carried on 
their affair right out there in the open, under his very 
eyes. It was absolutely disgusting. Had they no sense 
of decency, those two? Well, this ended it. He would 
stop that sort of thing short off; none of that on his ranch 
if he knew it. No, sir. He would pack that girl off be- 
fore he was a day older. He wouldn’t have that kind 
about the place. Not much! She’d have to get out. 
He would talk to old man Tree about it this afternoon. 
Whatever happened, he insisted upon morality.* 

And my dinner! ” he suddenly exclaimed. I’ve got 
to wait and go hungry — and maybe get sick again — 
while they carry on their disgusting love-making.” 

He turned about on the instant, and striding over to 
the electric bell, rang it again with all his might-. 

“ When that feemale gets up here,” he declared, '' I’ll 
just find out why I’ve got to wait like this. I’ll take her 
down, to the Queen’s taste. I’m lenient enough. Lord 
knows, but I don’t propose to be imposed upon all the 
time.” 

A few moments later, while Annixter was pretending 
to read the county newspaper by the window in the 
dining-room, Hilma came in to set the table. At the 
time Annixter had his feet cocked on the window ledge 
and was smoking a cigar, but as soon as she entered the 
room he — without premeditation — brought his feet 
down to the floor and crushed out the lighted tip of his 
cigar under the window ledge. Over the top of the 
paper he glanced at her covertly from time to time. 

Though Hilma was only nineteen years old, she was 
a large girl with all the development of a much older 
woman. There was a certain generous amplitude to the 
full, round curves of her hips and shoulders that sug- 
gested the precocious maturity of a healthy, vigorous 
animal life passed under the hot southern sun of a half' 


83 


A Story of California 

tropical country. She was, one knew at a glance, warm- 
blooded, full-blooded, with an even, comfortable balance 
of temperament. Her neck was thick, and sloped to her 
shoulders, with full, beautiful curves, and under her chin 
and under her ears the flesh was as white and smooth as 
floss satin, shading exquisitely to a faint delicate brown 
on her nape at the roots of her hair. Her throat rounded 
to meet her chin and cheek, with a soft swell of the skin, 
tinted pale amber in the shadows, but blending by barely 
perceptible gradations to the sweet, warm flush of her 
cheek. This colour on her temples was just touched 
with a certain blueness where the flesh was thin over the 
fine veining underneath. Her eyes were light brown, 
and so wide open that on the slightest provocation the 
ful disc of the pupil was disclosed; the lids — ^just a frac- 
tion of a shade darker than the hue of her face — were 
edged with lashes that were almost black. While these 
lashes were not long, they were thick and rimmed her 
eyes with a fine, thin line. Her mouth was rather large, 
the lips shut tight, and nothing could have been more 
graceful, more charming than the outline of these full 
lips of hers, and her round white chin, modulating down- 
ward with a certain delicious roundness to her neck, her 
throat and the sweet feminine amplitude of her breast. 
The slightest movement of her head and shoulders sent 
a gentle undulation through all this beauty of soft out- 
lines and smooth surfaces, the delicate amber shadows 
deepening or fading or losing themselves imperceptibly 
in the pretty rose-colour of her cheeks, or the dark, 
warm-tinted shadow of her thick brown hair. 

Her hair seemed almost to have a life of its own, 
almost Medusa-like, thick, glossy and moist, lying in 
heavy, sweet-smelling masses over her forehead, over 
her small ears with their pink lobes, and far down upon 
her nape. Deep in between the coils and braids it was 


84 


The Octopus 


of a bitumen brownness, but in the sunlight it vibrated 
with a sheen like tarnished gold. 

Like most large girls, her movements were not hur- 
ried, and this indefinite deliberateness of gesture, this 
slow grace, this certain ease of attitude, was a charm 
that was all her own. 

But Hilma’s greatest charm of all was her simplicity — 
a simplicity that was not only in the calm regularity of 
her face, with its statuesque evenness of contour, its 
broad surface of cheek and forehead and the masses of 
her straight smooth hair, but was apparent as well in 
the long line of her carnage, from her foot to her waist 
and the single deep swell from her waist to her shoulder. 
Almost unconsciously she dressed in harmony with this 
note of simplicity, and on this occasion wore a skirt of 
plain dark blue calico and a white shirt waist crisp from 
the laundry. 

And yet, for all the dignity of this rigourous simplicity, 
there were about Hilma small contradictory suggestions 
of feminine daintiness, charming beyond words. Even 
Annixter could not help noticing that her feet were 
narrow and slender, and that the little steel buckles of 
her low shoes were polished bright, and that her finger- 
tips and nails were of a fine rosy pink. 

He found himself wondering how it was that a girl in 
Hilma’s position should be able to keep herself so pretty, 
so trim, so clean and feminine, but he reflected that her 
work was chiefly in the dairy, and even there of the light- 
est order. She was on the ranch more for the sake of 
being with her parents than from any necessity of em- 
ployment. Vaguely he seemed to understand that, in 
that great new land of the West, in the open-air, healthy 
life of the ranches, where the conditions of earning a live- 
lihood were of the easiest, refinement among the 
younger women was easily to be found — not the refine- 


A Story of California 85 

ment of education, nor culture, but the natural, intuitive 
refinement of the woman, not as yet defiled and crushed 
out by the sordid, strenuous life-struggle of over-popu- 
lated districts. It was the original, intended and natural 
delicacy of an elemental existence, close to nature, close 
to life, close to the great, kindly earth. 

As Hilma laid the table-spread, her arms opened to 
their widest reach, the white cloth setting a little glisten 
of reflected light underneath the chin, Annixter stirred 
in his place uneasily. 

Oh, it's you, is it. Miss Hilma?” he remarked, for 
the sake of saying something. Good-morning. How 
do you do?” 

“ Good-mornmg, sir,” she answered, looking up, rest- 
ing for a moment on her outspread palms. I hope you 
are better.” 

Her voice was low in pitch and of a velvety huskiness, 
seeming to come more from her chest than from her 
throat. 

Well, I’m some better,” growled Annixter. Then 
suddenly he demanded, Where’s that dog? ” 

A decrepit Irish setter sometimes made his appearance 
in and about the ranch house, sleeping under the bed 
and eating when anyone about the place thought to give 
him a plate of bread. 

Annixter had no particular interest in the dog. For 
weeks at a time he ignored its existence. It was not 
his dog. But to-day it seemed as if he could not let the 
subject rest. For no reason that he could explain even 
to himself, he recurred to it continually. He questioned 
Hilma minutely all about the dog. Who owned him? 
How old did she think he was ? Did she imagine the dog 
was sick? Where had he got to? Maybe he had 
crawled off to die somewhere. He recurred to the sub- 
ject all through the meal; apparently, he could talk of 


86 


The Octopus 


nothing else, and as she finally went away after clearing 
off the table, he went onto the porch and called after 
her: 

Say, Miss Hilma.” 

Yes, sir.” 

If that dog turns up again you let me know.” 

Very well, sir.” 

Annixter returned to the dining-room and sat down 
in the chair he had just vacated. 

“ To hell with the dog! ” he muttered, enraged, he 
could not tell why. 

When at length he allowed his attention to wander 
from Hilma Tree, he found that he had been staring 
fixedly at a thermometer upon the wall opposite, and 
this made him think that it had long been his intention 
to buy a fine barometer, an instrument that could be 
accurately depended on. But the barometer suggested 
the present condition of the weather and the likelihood of 
rain. In such case, much was to be done in the way of 
getting the seed ready and overhauling his ploughs and 
drills. He had not been away from the house in two 
days. It was time to be up and doing. He determined 
to put in the afternoon taking a look around,” and have 
a late supper. He would not go to Los Muertos; he 
would ignore Magnus Derrick’s invitation. Possibly, 
though, it might be well to run over and see what was 
up. 

“ If I do,” he said to himself, '' I’ll ride the buckskin.” 

The buckskin was a half-broken broncho that fought 
like a fiend under the saddle until the quirt and spur 
brought her to her senses. But Annixter remembered 
that the Trees’ cottage, next the dairy-house, looked out 
upon the stables, and perhaps Hilma would see him while 
he was mounting the horse and be impressed with his 
courage^ 


87 


A Story of California 

** Huh! grunted Annixter under his breath, should 
like to see that fool Delaney try to bust that bronch. 
That’s what Fd like to see.” 

However, as Annixter stepped from the porch of the 
ranch house, he was surprised to notice a grey haze over 
all the sky; the sunlight was gone; there was a sense of 
coolness in the air; the weather-vane on the barn — a fine 
golden trotting horse with flamboyant mane and tail — 
was veering in a southwest wind. Evidently the ex- 
pected rain was close at hand. 

Annixter crossed over to the stables reflecting that 
he could ride the buckskin to the Trees’ cottage and 
tell Hilma that he would not be home to supper. The 
conference at Los Muertos would be an admirable ex- 
cuse for this, and upon the spot he resolved to go over 
to the Derrick ranch house, after all. 

As he passed the Trees’ cottage, he observed with 
satisfaction that Hilma was going to and fro in the front 
room. If he busted the buckskin in the yard before 
the stable she. could not help but see. Annixter found 
the stableman in the back of the barn greasing the axles 
of the buggy, and ordered him to put the saddle on the 
buckskin. 

“ Why, I don’t think she’s here, sir,” answered the 
stableman, glancing into the stalls. ‘‘ No, I remember 
now. Delaney took her out just after dinner. His 
other horse went lame and he wanted to go down by 
the Long Trestle to mend the fence. He started out, 
but had to come back.” 

“ Oh, Delaney got her, did he?” 

Yes, sir. He had a circus with her, but he busted 
her right enough. When it comes to horse, Delaney 
can wipe the eye of any cow-puncher in the county, I 
guess.” 

** He can, can he?” observed Annixter. Then after 


88 


The Octopus 

a silence, Well, all right, Billy; put my saddle on what- 
ever youVe got here. I’m going over to Los Muertos 
this afternoon.” 

“ Want to look out for the rain, Mr. Annixter,” re- 
marked Billy. “ Guess we’ll have rain before night.” 

“ I’ll take a rubber coat,” answered Annixter. “ Bring 
the horse up to the ranch house when you’re ready.” 

Annixter returned to the house to look for his rubber 
coat in deep disgust, not permitting himself to glance 
toward the dairy-house and the Trees’ cottage. But 
as he reached the porch he heard the telephone ringing 
his call. It was Presley, who rang up from Los Muer- 
tos. He had heard from Harran that Annixter was, 
perhaps, coming over that evening. If he came, would 
he mind bringing over his — Presley’s — bicycle. He had 
left it at the Quien Sabe ranch the day before and had 
forgotten to come back that way for it. 

“ Well,” objected Annixter, a surly note in his voice, 

I was going to ride over.” 

Oh, never mind, then, ” returned Presley easily. I 
was to blame for forgetting it. Don’t bother about it. 
I’ll come over some of these days and get it myself.” 

Annixter hung up the transmitter with a vehement 
wrench and stamped out of the room, banging the door. 
He found his rubber coat hanging in the hallway and 
swung into it with a fierce movement of the shoulders that 
all but started the seams. Everything seemed to con- 
spire to thwart him. It was just like that absent-minded, 
crazy poet, Presley, to forget his wheel. Well, he could 
come after it himself. He, Annixter, would ride some 
horse, anyhow. When he came out upon the porch he 
saw the wheel leaning against the fence where Presley 
had left it. If it stayed there much longer the rain would 
catch it. Annixter ripped out an oath. At every mo- 
ment his ill-humour was increasing. Yet, for all that, he 


89 


A Story of California 

went back to the stable, pushing the bicycle before him, 
and countermanded his order, directing the stableman 
to get the buggy ready. He himself carefully stowed 
Presley’s bicycle under the seat, covering it with a couple 
of empty sacks and a tarpaulin carriage cover. 

While he was doing this, the stableman uttered an ex- 
clamation and paused in the act of backing the horse 
into the shafts, holding up a hand, listening. 

From the hollow roof of the barn and from the thick 
velvet-like padding of dust over the ground outside, and 
from among the leaves of the few nearby trees and plants 
there came a vast, monotonous murmur that seemed to 
issue from all quarters of the horizon at once, a pro- 
longed and subdued rustling sound, steady, even, per- 
sistent. 

“ There’s your rain,” announced the stableman. The 
first of the season.” 

“ And I got to be out in it,” fumed Annixter, “ and 
I suppose those swine will quit work on the big barn 
now.” 

When the buggy was finally ready, he put on his rubber 
coat, climbed in, and without waiting for the stableman 
to raise the top, drove out into the rain, a new-lit cigar in 
his teeth. As he passed the dairy-house, he saw Hilma 
standing in the doorway, holding out her hand to the 
rain, her face turned upward toward the grey sky, 
amused and interested at this first shower of the wet 
season. She was so absorbed that she did not see An- 
nixter, and his clumsy nod in her direction passed un- 
noticed. 

** She did it on purpose,” Annixter told himself, chew- 
ing fiercely on his cigar. ** Cuts me now, hey? Well, 
this does settle it. She leaves this ranch before I’m a 
day older.” 

He decided that he would put off his tour of inspection 


90 


The Octopus 


till the next day. Travelling in the buggy as he did, he 
must keep to the road which led to Derrick’s, in very 
roundabout fashion, by way of Guadalajara. This rain 
would reduce the thick dust of the road to two feet of 
viscid mud. It would take him quite three hours to 
reach the ranch house on Los Muertos. He thought of 
Delaney and the buckskin and ground his teeth. And 
all this trouble, if you please, because of a fool feemale 
girl. A fine way for him to waste his time. Well, now 
he was done with it. His decision was taken now. She 
should pack. 

Steadily the rain increased. There was no wind. The 
thick veil of wet descended straight from sky to earth, 
blurring distant outlines, spreading a vast sheen of grey 
over all the landscape. Its volume became greater, the 
prolonged murmuring note took on a deeper tone. At 
the gate to the road which led across Dyke’s hop-fields 
toward Guadalajara, Annixter was obliged to descend 
and raise the top of the buggy. In doing so he caught 
the flesh of his hand in the joint of the iron elbow that 
supported the top and pinched it cruelly. It was the last 
misery, the culmination of a long train of wretchedness. 
On the instant he hated Hilma Tree so fiercely that his 
sharply set teeth all but bit his cigar in two. 

While he was grabbing and wrenching at the buggy^ 
top, the water from his hat brim dripping down upon his 
nose, the horse, restive under the drench of the rain, 
moved uneasily. 

“Yah-h-h you!” he shouted, inarticulate with exas- 
peration. “ You — you — Gor-r-r, wait till I get hold of 
you. Whoa, yonl** 

But there was an interruption. Delaney, riding the 
buckskin, came around a bend in the road at a slow 
trot and Annixter, getting into the buggy again, found 
himself face to face with him. 


A Story of California 


91 

Why, hello, Mr. Annixter,” said he, pulling up. 
“ Kind of sort of wet, isn’t it? ” 

Annixter, his face suddenly scarlet, sat back in his 
place abruptly, exclaiming: 

“ Oh — oh, there you are, are you? ” 

I’ve been down there,” explained Delaney, with a 
motion of his head toward the railroad, '' to mend that 
break in the fence by the Long Trestle and I thought 
while I was about it I’d follow down along the fence 
toward Guadalajara to see if there were any more breaks. 
But I guess it’s all right.” 

Oh, you guess it’s all right, do you? ” observed An- 
nixter through his teeth. 

Why — why — yes,” returned the other, bewildered at 
the truculent ring in Annixter’s voice. “ I mended that 
break by the Long Trestle just now and ” 

Well, why didn’t you mend it a week ago? ” shouted 
Annixter wrathfully. I’ve been looking for you all the 
morning, I have, and who told you you could take that 
buckskin? And the sheep were all over the right of 
way last night because of that break, and here that filthy 
pip, S. Behrman, comes down here this morning and 
wants to make trouble for me.” Suddenly he cried out, 
“ What do I feed you for? What do I keep you around 
here for? Think it’s just to fatten up your carcass, hey? ” 

“ Why, Mr. Annixter ” began Delaney, 

“ And don’t talk to me,” vociferated the other, exciting 
himself with his own noise. Don’t you say a word to 
me even to apologise. If I’ve spoken to you once about 
that break, I’ve spoken fifty times.” 

‘"Why, sir,” declared Delaney, beginning to get in- 
dignant, '' the sheep did it themselves last night.” 

'' I told you not to talk to me,” clamoured Annixter. 

But, say, look here ” 

*'Get off the ranch. You get off the ranch. And 


92 


The Octopus 


taking that buckskin against my express orders. I 
won’t have your kind about the place, not much. I’m 
easy-going enough, Lord knows, but I don’t propose to 
be imposed on all the time. Pack off, you understand, 
and do it lively. Go to the foreman and tell him I told 
him to pay you off and then clear out. And, you hear 
me,” he concluded, with a menacing outthrust of his 
lower jaw, you hear me, if I catch you hanging around 
the ranch house after this, or if I so much as see you on 
Quien Sabe, I’ll show you the way off of it, my friend, at 
the toe of my boot. Now, then, get out of the way and 
let me pass.” 

Angry beyond the power of retort, Delaney drove the 
spurs into the buckskin and passed the buggy in a single 
bound. Annixter gathered up the reins and drove on, 
muttering to himself, and occasionally looking back to 
observe the buckskin flying toward the ranch house in 
a spattering shower of mud, Delaney urging her on, his 
head bent down against the falling rain. 

“ Huh,” grunted Annixter with grim satisfaction, a 
certain sense of good humour at length returning to him, 

that just about takes the saleratus out of your dough, 
my friend.” 

A little farther on, Annixter got out of the buggy a 
second time to open another gate that let him out upon 
the Upper Road, not far distant from Guadalajara. It 
was the road that connected that town with Bonneville, 
and that ran parallel with the railroad tracks. On the 
other side of the track he could see the infinite extension 
of the brown, bare land of Los Muertos, turning now to 
a soft, moist welter of fertility under the insistent caress- 
ing of the rain. The hard, sun-baked clods were de- 
composing, the crevices between drinking the wet with 
an eager, sucking noise. But the prospect was dreary; 
the distant horizons were blotted under drifting mists 


93 


A Story of California 

of rain; the eternal monotony of the earth lay open to 
the sombre low sky without a single adornment, without 
a single variation from its melancholy flatness. Near at 
hand the wires between the telegraph poles vibrated with 
a faint humming under the multitudinous fingering of 
the myriad of falling drops, striking among them and 
dripping off steadily from one to another. The poles 
themselves were dark and swollen and glistening with 
wet, while the little cones of glass on the transverse bars 
reflected the dull grey light of the end of the afternoon. 

As Annixter was about to drive on, a freight train 
passed, coming from Guadalajara, going northward to- 
ward Bonneville, Fresno and San Francisco. It was a 
long train, moving slowly, methodically, with a measured 
coughing of its locomotive and a rhythmic cadence of its 
trucks over the interstices of the rails. On two or three 
of the flat cars near its end, Annixter plainly saw Magnus 
Derrick’s ploughs, their bright coating of red and green 
paint setting a single brilliant note in all this array of 
grey and brown. 

Annixter halted, watching the train file past, carrying 
Derrick’s ploughs away from his ranch, at this very time 
of the first rain, when they would be most needed. He 
watched it, silent, thoughtful, and without articulate 
comment. Even after it passed he sat in his place a long 
time, watching it lose itself slowly in the distance, its 
prolonged rumble diminishing to a faint murmur. Soon 
he heard the engine sounding its whistle for the Long 
Trestle. 

But the moving train no longer carried with it that 
impression of terror and destruction that had so thrilled 
Presley’s imagination the night before. It passed slowly 
on its way with a mournful roll of wheels, like the pass- 
ing of a cortege, like a file of artillery-caissons charioting 
dead bodies; the engine^s smoke enveloping it in a 


94 


The Octopus 


mournful veil, leaving a sense of melancholy in its wake, 
moving past there, lugubrious, lamentable, infinitely sad, 
under the grey sky and under the grey mist of rain which 
continued to fall with a subdued, rustling sound, steady, 
persistent, a vast monotonous murmur that seemed to 
come from all quarters of the horizon at once. 


When Annixter arrived at the Los Muertos ranch 
house that same evening, he found a little group already 
assembled in the dining-room. Magnus Derrick, wear- 
ing the frock coat of broadcloth that he had put on for 
the occasion, stood with his back to the fireplace. Har- 
ran sat close at hand, one leg thrown over the arm of his 
chair. Presley lounged on the sofa, in corduroys and 
high laced boots, smoking cigarettes. Broderson leaned 
on his folded arms at one corner of the dining table, and 
Genslinger, editor and proprietor of the principal news- 
paper of the county, the “ Bonneville Mercury,” stood 
with his hat and driving gloves under his arm, opposite 
Derrick, a half-emptied glass of whiskey and water in his 
hand. 

As Annixter entered he heard Genslinger observe: 
“ ril have a leader in the ' Mercury ’ to-morrow that will 
interest you people. There’s some talk of your ranch 
lands being graded in value this winter. I suppose you 
will all buy?” 

In an instant the editor’s words had riveted upon him 
the attention of every man in the room. Annixter broke 
the moment’s silence that followed with the remark : 

'' Well, it’s about time they graded these lands of 
theirs.” 

The question in issue in Genslinger’s remark was of 
the most vital interest to the ranchers around Bonneville 
and Guadalajara. Neither Magnus Derrick, Broderson, 
Annixter, nor Osterman actually owned all the ranches 


96 


The Octopus 

which they worked. As yet, the vast majority of these 
wheat lands were the property of the P. and S. W. The 
explanation of this condition of affairs went back to the 
early history of the Pacific and Southwestern, when, as 
a bonus for the construction of the road, the national 
government had granted to the company the odd num- 
bered sections of land on either side of the proposed 
line of route for a distance of twenty miles. Indisputably, 
these sections belonged to the P. and S. W. The even- 
numbered sections being government property could 
be and had been taken up by the ranchers, but the rail- 
road sections, or, as they were called, the “ alternate sec- 
tions,’' would have to be purchased direct from the rail- 
road itself. 

But this had not prevented the farmers from ''coming 
in ” upon that part of the San Joaquin. Long before this 
the railroad had thrown open these lands, and, by means 
of circulars, distributed broadcast throughout the State, 
had expressly invited settlement thereon. At that time 
patents had not been issued to the railroad for their odd- 
numbered sections, but as soon as the land was patented 
the railroad would grade it in value and offer it for sale, 
the first occupants having the first chance of purchase. 
The price of these lands was to be fixed by the price the 
government put upon its own adjoining lands — about 
two dollars and a half per acre. 

With cultivation and improvement the ranches must 
inevitably appreciate in value. There was every chance 
to make fortunes. When the railroad lands about 
Bonneville had been thrown open, there had been almost 
a rush in the matter of settlement, and Broderson, An- 
nixter. Derrick, and Osterman, being foremost with 
their claims, had secured the pick of the country. But 
the land once settled upon, the P. and S. W. seemed to be 
in no hurry as to fixing exactly the value of its sections 


97 


A Story of California 

included in the various ranches and offering them for 
sale. The matter dragged along from year to year, was 
forgotten for months together, being only brought to 
mind on such occasions as this, when the rumour spread 
that the General Office was about to take definite action 
in the affair. 

** As soon as the railroad wants to talk business with 
me,’^ observed Annixter, “ about selling me their interest 
in Quien Sabe, I’m ready. The land has more than 
quadrupled in value. I’ll bet I could sell it to-mor- 
row for fifteen dollars an acre, and if I buy of the rail- 
road for two and a half an acre, there’s boodle in the 
game.” 

“ For two and a half! ” exclaimed Genslinger. ** You 
don’t suppose the railroad will let their land go for any 
such figure as that, do you ? Wherever did you get that 
idea?” 

From the circulars and pamphlets,” answered Har- 
ran, that the railroad issued to us when they opened 
these lands. They are pledged to that. Even the P. and 
S. W. couldn’t break such a pledge as that. You are new 
in the country, Mr. Genslinger. You don’t remember 
the conditions upon which we took up this land.” 

And our improvements,” exclaimed Annixter. 

Why, Magnus and I have put about five thousand dol- 
lars between us into that irrigating ditch already. I 
guess we are not improving the land just to make it 
valuable for the railroad people. No matter how much 
we improve the land, or how much it increases in value, 
they have got to stick by their agreement on the basis of 
two-fifty per acre. Here’s one case where the P. and 
S. W. don't get everything in sight.” 

Genslinger frowned, perplexed. 

“ I am new in the country, as Harran says,” he an- 
swered, “ but it seems to me that there’s no fairness in 


98 The Octopus 

that proposition. The presence of the railroad has 
helped increase the value of your ranches quite as much 
as your improvements. Why should you get all the bene- 
fit of the rise in value and the railroad nothing? The 
fair way would be to share it between you.” 

‘‘ I don’t care anything about that,” declared Annixter. 
“ They agreed to charge but two-fifty, and they’ve got to 
stick to it.” 

Well,” murmured Genslinger, from what I know of 
the affair, I don’t believe the P. and S. W. intends to sell 
for two-fifty an acre, at all. The managers of the road 
want the best price they can get for everything in these 
hard times.” 

Times aren’t ever very hard for the railroad,” haz- 
ards old Broderson. 

Broderson was the oldest man in the room. He was 
about sixty-five years of age, venerable, with a white 
beard, his figure bent earthwards with hard work. 

He was a narrow-minded man, painfully conscientious 
in his statements lest he should be unjust to somebody; 
a slow thinker, unable to let a subject drop when once 
he had started upon it. He had no sooner uttered 
his remark about hard times than he was moved to 
qualify it. 

“ Hard times,” he repeated, a troubled, perplexed note 
in his voice ; well, yes — yes. I suppose the road does 
have hard times, maybe. Everybody does — of course. 
I didn’t mean that exactly. I believe in being just and 
fair to everybody. I mean that we’ve got to use their 
lines and pay their charges good years and bad years, 
the P. and S. W. being the only road in the State. That 
is — ^well, when I say the only road — no, I won’t say the 
only road. Of course there are other roads. There’s the 
D. P. and M. and the San Francisco and North Pacific, 
that runs up to Ukiah. I got a brother-in-law in Ukiah, 


99 


A Story of California 

That’s not much of a wheat country round Ukiah, 
though they do grow some wheat there, come to think. 
But I guess it’s too far north. Well, of course there 
isn’t much. Perhaps sixty thousand acres in the whole 
county — if you include barley and oats. I don’t know; 
maybe it’s nearer forty thousand. I don’t remember 
very well. That’s a good many years ago. I ” 

But Annixter, at the end of all patience, turned to 
Genslinger, cutting short the old man : 

“ Oh, rot! Of course the railroad will sell at two- 
fifty,” he cried. “ We’ve got the contracts.” 

“ Look to them, then, Mr. Annixter,” retorted Gen- 
slinger significantly, look to them. Be sure that you 
are protected.” 

Soon after this Genslinger took himself away, and Der- 
rick’s Chinaman came in to set the table. 

'' What do you suppose he meant ? ” asked Broderson, 
when Genslinger was gone. 

“ About this land business ? ” said Annixter. “ Oh, I 
don’t know. Some tom fool idea. Haven’t we got their 
terms printed in black and white in their circulars? 
There’s their pledge.” 

“ Oh, as to pledges,” murmured Broderson, the rail- 
road is not always too much hindered by those.” 

'' Where’s Osterman ? ” demanded Annixter, abruptly 
changing the subject as if it were not worth discussion. 

Isn’t that goat Osterman coming down here to- 
night ? ” 

You telephoned him, didn’t you, Presley? ” inquired 
Magnus. 

Presley had taken Princess Nathalie upon his knee, 
stroking her long, sleek hair, and the cat, stupefied with 
beatitude, had closed her eyes to two fine lines, clawing 
softly at the corduroy of Presley’s trousers with alter- 
nate paws. 


lOO The Octopus 

“ Yes, sir,’' returned Presley. He said he would be 
here.” 

And as he spoke, young Osterman arrived. 

He was a young fellow, but singularly inclined to bald- 
ness. His ears, very red and large, stuck out at right 
angles from either side of his head, and his mouth, too, 
was large — a great horizontal slit beneath his nose. His 
cheeks were of a brownish red, the cheek bones a little 
salient. His face was that of a comic actor, a singer of 
songs, a man never at a loss for an answer, continually 
striving to make a laugh. But he took no great interest 
in ranching and left the management of his land to his 
superintendents and foremen, he, himself, living in 
Bonneville. He was a poser, a wearer of clothes, forever 
acting a part, striving to create an impression, to draw 
attention to himself. He was not without a certain 
energy, but he devoted it to small ends, to perfecting 
himself in little accomplishments, continually running 
after some new thing, incapable of persisting long in any 
one course. At one moment his mania would be fencing; 
the next, sleight-of-hand tricks; the next, archery. For 
upwards of one month he had devoted himself to learn- 
ing how to play two banjos simultaneously, then aban- 
doning this had developed a sudden passion for stamped 
leather work and had made a quantity of purses, tennis 
belts, and hat bands, which he presented to young ladies 
of his acquaintance. It was his policy never to make an 
enemy. He was liked far better than he was respected. 
People spoke of him as “ that goat Osterman,” or that 
fool Osterman kid,” and invited him to dinner. He was 
of the sort who somehow cannot be ignored. If only be- 
cause of his clamour he made himself important. If he 
had one abiding trait, it was his desire of astonishing 
people, and in some way, best known to himself, man- 
aged to cause the circulation of the most extraordinary 


A Story of California loi 

tones wherein he, himself, was the chief actor. He was 
glib, voluble, dexterous, ubiquitous, a teller of funny 
stories, a cracker of jokes. 

Naturally enough, he was heavily in debt, but carried 
the burden of it with perfect nonchalance. The year be- 
fore S. Behrman had held mortgages for fully a third of 
his crop and had squeezed him viciously for interest. 
But for all that, Osterman and S. Behrman were con- 
tinually seen arm-in-arm on the main street of Bonne- 
ville. Osterman was accustomed to slap S. Behrman on 
his fat back, declaring: 

You’re a good fellow, old jelly-belly, after all, hey? ” 

As Osterman entered from the porch, after hanging 
his cavalry poncho and dripping hat on the rack outside, 
Mrs. Derrick appeared in the door that opened from the 
dining-room into the glass-roofed hallway just beyond. 
Osterman saluted her with effusive cordiality and with 
ingratiating blandness. 

“ I am not going to stay,” she explained, smiling pleas- 
antly at the group of men, her pretty, wide-open brown 
eyes, with their look of inquiry and innocence, glancing 
from face to face, “ I only came to see if you wanted 
anything and to say how do you do.” 

She began talking to old Broderson, making in- 
quiries as to his wife, who had been sick the last week, 
and Osterman turned to the company, shaking hands 
all around, keeping up an incessant stream of conver- 
sation. 

“ Hello, boys and girls. Hello, Governor. Sort of a 
gathering of the clans to-night. Well, if here isn’t that 
man Annixter. Hello, Buck. What do you know? 
Kind of dusty out to-night.” 

At once Annixter began to get red in the face, retiring 
towards a corner of the room, standing in an awkward 
position by the case of stuffed birds, shambling and con- 


102 


The Octopus 


fused, while Mrs. Derrick was present, standing rigidl^r 
on both feet, his elbows close to his sides. But he was 
angry with Osterman, muttering imprecations to him- 
self, horribly vexed that the young fellow should call him 
“ Buck ” before Magnus’s wife. This goat Osterman ! 
Hadn’t he any sense, that fool? Couldn’t he ever learn 
how to behave before a feemale? Calling him “ Buck ” 
like that while Mrs. Derrick was there. Why a stable- 
boy would know better ; a hired man would have better 
manners. 

All through the dinner that followed Annixter was out 
of sorts, sulking in his place, refusing to eat by way of 
vindicating his self-respect, resolving to bring Osterman 
up with a sharp turn if he called him “ Buck ” again. 

The Chinaman had made a certain kind of plum pud- 
ding for dessert, and Annixter, who remembered other 
dinners at the Derrick’s, had been saving himself for 
this, and had meditated upon it all through the meal. 
No doubt, it would restore all his good humour, and he 
believed his stomach was so far recovered as to be able 
to stand it. 

But, unfortunately, the pudding was served with a 
sauce that he abhorred — a thick, gruel-like, colourless 
mixture, made from plain water and sugar. Before he 
could interfere, the Chinaman had poured a quantity of 
it upon his plate. 

“ Faugh! ” exclaimed Annixter. “ It makes me sick. 
Such — such sloop. Take it away. I’ll have mine straight, 
if you don’t mind.” 

“ That’s good for your stomach. Buck,” observed 
young Osterman ; makes it go down kind of sort of 
slick; don’t you see? Sloop, hey? That’s a good name.” 

“ Look here, don’t you call me Buck. You don’t seem 
to have any sense, and, besides, it isn’t good for my 
stomach. I know better. What do you know about my 


A Story of California 103 

stomach, anyhow ? Just looking at sloop like that makes 
me sick.” 

A little while after this the Chinaman cleared away the 
dessert and brought in coffee and cigars. The whiskey 
bottle and the syphon of soda-water reappeared. The 
men eased themselves in their places, pushing back from 
the table, lighting their cigars, talking of the beginning 
of the rains and the prospects of a rise in wheat. Brod- 
erson began an elaborate mental calculation, trying to 
settle in his mind the exact date of his visit to Ukiah, and 
Osterman did sleight-of-hand tricks with bread pills. 
But Princess Nathalie, the cat, was uneasy. Annixter 
was occupying her own particular chair in which she 
slept every night. She could not go to sleep, but spied 
upon him continually, watching his every movement 
with her lambent, yellow eyes, clear as amber. 

Then, at length, Magnus, who was at the head of the 
table, moved in his place, assuming a certain magisterial 
attitude. “ Well, gentlemen,” he observed, I have lost 
my case against the railroad, the grain-rate case. Ul- 
Steen decided against me, and now I hear rumours to 
the effect that rates for the hauling of grain are to be 
advanced.” 

When Magnus had finished, there was a moment's 
silence, each member of the group maintaining his at- 
titude of attention and interest. It was Harran who first 
spoke. 

S. Behrman manipulated the whole affair. There's a 
big deal of some kind in the air, and if there is, we all 
know who is back of it ; S. Behrman, of course, but who's 
back of him? It's Shelgrim.” 

Shelgrim ! The name fell squarely in the midst of the 
conversation, abrupt, grave, sombre, big with sugges- 
tion, pregnant with huge associations. No one in the 
group who was not familiar with it; no one, for that 


104 The Octopus 

matter, in the county, the State, the whole reach of the 
West, the entire Union, that did not entertain convictions 
as to the man who carried it; a giant figure in the end-of- 
the-century finance, a product of circumstance, an inevit- 
able result of conditions, characteristic, typical, symbolic 
of ungovernable forces. In the New Movement, the New 
Finance, the reorganisation of capital, the amalgamation 
of powers, the consolidation of enormous enterprises — 
no one individual was more constantly in the eye of the 
world; no one was more hated, more dreaded, no one 
more compelling of unwilling tribute to his command- 
ing genius, to the colossal intellect operating the width 
of an entire continent than the president and owner of 
the Pacific and Southwestern. 

I don’t think, however, he has moved yet,” said 
Magnus. 

The thing for us, then,” exclaimed Osterman, ** is 
to stand from under before he does.” 

Moved yet ! ” snorted Annixter. “ He’s probably 
moved so long ago that we’ve never noticed it.” 

In any case,” hazarded Magnus, ‘‘ it is scarcely prob- 
able that the deal — ^whatever it is to be — has been con- 
summated. If we act quickly, there may be a chance.” 

Act quickly! How? ” demanded Annixter. “ Good 
Lord! what can you do? We’re cinched already. It 
all amounts to just this : You can't buck against tJie rail- 
road. We’ve tried it and tried it, and we are stuck every 
time. You, yourself. Derrick, have just lost your grain- 
rate case. S. Behrman did you up. Shelgrim owns the 
courts. He’s got men like Ulsteen in his pocket. He’s 
got the Railroad Commission in his pocket. He’s got 
the Governor of the State in his pocket. He keeps a 
million-dollar lobby at Sacramento every minute of the 
time the legislature is in session; he’s got his own men 
on the floor of the United States Senate. He has the 


A Story of California 105 

whole thing organised like an army corps. What are 
you going to do? He sits in his office in San Francisco 
and pulls the strings and we’ve got to dance.” 

“ But — well — but,” hazarded Broderson, “ but there’s 
the Interstate Commerce Commission. At least on 
long-haul rates they ” 

“ Hoh, yes, the Interstate Commerce Commission,” 
shouted Annixter, scornfully, that’s great, ain’t it ? 
The greatest Punch and Judy show on earth. It’s almost 
as good as the Railroad Commission. There never was 
and there never will be a California Railroad Commission 
not in the pay of the P. and S. W.” 

It is to the Railroad Commission, nevertheless,” re- 
marked Magnus, “ that the people of the State must 
look for relief. That is our only hope. Once elect Com- 
missioners who would be loyal to the people, and the 
whole system of excessive rates falls to the ground.” 

“ Well, why not have a Railroad Commission of our 
own, then? ” suddenly declared young Osterman. 

“ Because it can’t be done,” retorted Annixter. '' You 
canH buck against the railroad and if you could you can’t 
organise the farmers in the San Joaquin. We tried it 
once, and it was enough to turn your stomach. The rail- 
road quietly bought delegates through S. Behrman and 
did us up.” 

“ Well, that’s the game to play,” said Osterman de- 
cisively, buy delegates.” 

It’s the only game that seems to win,” admitted 
Harran gloomily. 

“ Or ever will win,” exclaimed Osterman, a sudden 
excitement seeming to take possession of him. His 
face — the face of a comic actor, with its great slit of 
mouth and stiff, red ears — went abruptly pink. 

Look here,” he cried, this thing is getting des- 
perate. We’ve fought and fought in the courts and out 


io6 The Octopus 

and we’ve tried agitation and — and all the rest of it and 
S. Behrman sacks us every time. Now comes the time 
when there’s a prospect of a big crop ; we’ve had no rain 
for two years and the land has had a long rest. If there 
is any rain at all this winter, we’ll have a bonanza year, 
and just at this very moment when we’ve got our chance 
— a chance to pay off our mortgages and get clear of 
debt and make a strike — here is Shelgrim making a deal 
to cinch us and put up rates. And now here’s the pri- 
maries coming off and a new Railroad Commission go- 
ing in. That’s why Shelgrim chose this time to make 
his deal. If we wait till Shelgrim pulls it off, we’re done 
for, that’s flat. I tell you we’re in a fix if we don’t keep 
an eye open. Things are getting desperate. Magnus 
has just said that the key to the whole thing is the Rail- 
road Commission. Well, why not have a Commission of 
our own ? Never mind how we get it, let’s get it. If it's 
got to be bought, let’s buy it and put our own men on it 
and dictate what the rates will be. Suppose it CQsts 
a hundred thousand dollars. Well, we’ll get back more 
than that in cheap rates.” 

Mr. Osterman,” said Magnus, fixing the young man 
with a swift glance, Mr. Osterman, you are proposing 
a scheme of bribery, sir.” 

I am proposing,” repeated Osterman, “ a scheme of 
bribery. Exactly so.” 

And a crazy, wild-eyed scheme at that,” said An- 
nixter gruffly. “ Even supposing you bought a Railroad 
Commission and got your schedule of low rates, what 
happens? The P. and S. W. crowd get out an injunction 
and tie you up.” 

They would tie themselves up, too. Hauling at low 
rates is better than no hauling at all. The wheat has 
got to be moved.” 

'' Oh, rot ! ” cried Annixter, “ Aren’t you ever going 


A Story of California 107 

to learn any sense? Don’t you know that cheap trans- 
portation would benefit the Liverpool buyers and not 
us ? Can’t it be fed into you that you can’t buck against 
the railroad? When you try to buy a Board of Com- 
missioners don’t you see that you’ll have to bid against 
the railroad, bid against a corporation that can chuck 
out millions to our thousands? Do you think you can 
bid against the P. and S. W.? ” 

“ The railroad don’t need to know we are in the game 
against them till we’ve got our men seated.” 

“ And when you’ve got them seated, what’s to prevent 
the corporation buying them right over your head ? ” 

If we’ve got the right kind of men in they could not 
be bought that way,” interposed Harran. I don’t 
know but what there’s something in what Osterman 
says. We’d have the naming of the Commission and 
we’d name honest men.” 

Annixter struck the table with his fist in exasperation. 
Honest men ! ” he shouted ; “ the kind of men you 
could get to go into such a scheme would have to be dw- 
honest to begin with.” 

Broderson, shifting uneasily in his place, fingering his 
beard with a vague, uncertain gesture, spoke again : 

“ It would be the chance of them — our Commissioners 
— selling out against the certainty of Shelgrim doing us 
up. That is,” he hastened to add, “ almost a certainty; 
pretty near a certainty.” 

“ Of course, it would be a chance,” exclaimed Oster- 
man. But it’s come to the point where we’ve got to 
take chances, risk a big stake to make a big strike, and 
risk is better than sure failure.” 

“ I can be no party to a scheme of avowed bribery 
and corruption, Mr. Osterman,” declared Magnus, a 
ring of severity in his voice. I am surprised, sir, that 
you should even broach the subject in my hearing.” 


lo8 The Octopus 

And,” cried Annixter, it can’t be done.” 

“ I don’t know,” muttered Harran, “ maybe it just 
wants a little spark like this to fire the whole train.” 

Magnus glanced at his son in considerable surprise. 
He had not expected this of Harran. But so great was 
his affection for his son, so accustomed had he become 
to listening to his advice, to respecting his opinions, 
that, for the moment, after the first shock of surprise 
and disappointment, he was influenced to give a certain 
degree of attention to this new proposition. He in no 
way countenanced it. At any moment he was prepared 
to rise in his place and denounce it and Osterman both. 
It was trickery of the most contemptible order, a thing 
he believed to be unknown to the old school of politics 
and statesmanship to which he was proud to belong; 
but since Harran, even for one moment, considered it, 
he, Magnus, who trusted Harran implicitly, would do 
likewise — if it was only to oppose and defeat it in its 
very beginnings. 

And abruptly the discussion began. Gradually Oster- 
man, by dint of his clamour, his strident reiteration, the 
plausibility of his glib, ready assertions, the ease with 
which he extricated himself when apparently driven to a 
corner, completely won over old Broderson to his way 
of thinking. Osterman bewildered him with his volu- 
bility, the lightning rapidity with which he leaped from 
one subject to another, garrulous, witty, flamboyant, 
terrifying the old man with pictures of the swift ap- 
proach of ruin, the imminence of danger. 

Annixter, who led the argument against him — loving 
argument though he did — appeared to poor advantage, 
unable to present his side effectively. He called Oster- 
man a fool, a goat, a senseless, crazy-headed jackass, but 
was unable to refute his assertions. His debate was the 
clumsy heaving of brickbats, brutal, direct. He con- 


109 


A Story of California 

tradicted everything Osterman said as a matter of prin- 
ciple, made conflicting assertions, declarations that were 
absolutely inconsistent, and when Osterman or Harran 
used these against him, could only exclaim: 

Well, in a way it’s so, and then again in a way it 
isn’t.” 

But suddenly Osterman discovered a new argument. 
“ If we swing this deal,” he cried, “ we’ve got old jelly- 
belly Behrman right where we want him.” 

“ He’s the man that does us every time,” cried Harran. 

If there is dirty work to be done in which the railroad 
doesn’t wish to appear, it is S. Behrman who does it. 
If the freight rates are to be ' adjusted ’ to squeeze us a 
little harder, it is S. Behrman who regulates what we can 
stand. If there’s a judge to be bought, it is S. Behrman 
who does the bargaining. If there is a jury to be bribed, 
it is S. Behrman who handles the money. If there is an 
election to be jobbed, it is S. Behrman who manipulates 
it. It’s Behrman here and Behrman there. It is Behr- 
man we come against every time we make a move. It is 
Behrman who has the grip of us and will never let go 
till he has squeezed us bone dry. Why, when I think 
of it all sometimes I wonder I keep my hands off the 
man.” 

Osterman got on his feet; leaning across the table, 
gesturing wildly with his right hand, his serio-comic face, 
with its bald forehead and stiff, red ears, was inflamed 
with excitement. He took the floor, creating an impres- 
sion, attracting all attention to himself, playing to the 
gallery, gesticulating, clamourous, full of noise. 

“Well, now is your chance to get even,” he vociferated. 
“ It is now or never. You can take it and save the situa- 
tion for yourselves and all California or you can leave 
it and rot on your own ranches. Buck, I know you. I 
know you’re not afraid of anything that wears skin. 


no 


The Octopus 

I know you’ve got sand all through you, and I know if 
I showed you how we could put our deal through and 
seat a Commission of our own, you wouldn’t hang back. 
Governor, you’re a brave man. You know the advan- 
tage of prompt and fearless action. You are not the 
sort to shrink from taking chances. To play for big 
stakes is just your game — to stake a fortune on the turn 
of a card. You didn’t get the reputation of being the 
strongest poker player in El Dorado County for noth- 
ing. Now, here’s the biggest gamble that ever came 
your way. If we stand up to it like men with guts in us, 
we’ll win out. If we hesitate, we’re lost.” 

I don’t suppose you can help playing the goat, Oster- 
man,” remarked Annixter, “ but what’s your idea? 
What do you think we can do? I’m not saying,” he 
hastened to interpose, “ that you’ve anyways convinced 
me by all this cackling. I know as well as you that we 
are in a hole. But I knew that before I came here to- 
night. You've not done anything to make me change 
my mind. But just what do you propose? Let’s 
hear it.” 

Well, I say the first thing to do is to see Disbrow, 
He’s the political boss of the Denver, Pueblo, and Mo- 
jave road. We will have to get in with the machine 
some way and that’s particularly why I want Magnrs 
with us. He knows politics better than any of us and if 
we don’t want to get sold again we will have to have 
some one that’s in the know to steer us.” 

The only politics I understand, Mr. Osterman,” an- 
swered Magnus sternly, “ are honest politics. You must 
look elsewhere for your political manager. I refuse to 
have any part in this matter. If the Railroad Commis- 
sion can be nominated legitimately, if your arrangements 
can be made without bribery, I am with you to the last 
iota of my ability.” 


Ill 


A Story of California 

** Well, you can’t get what you want without paying 
for it,” contradicted Annixter. 

Broderson was about to speak when Osterman kicked 
his foot under the table. He, himself, held his peace. 
He was quick to see that if he could involve Magnus and 
Annixter in an argument, Annixter, for the mere love of 
contention, would oppose the Governor and, without 
knov/ing it, would commit himself to his — Osterman’s — 
scheme. 

This was precisely what happened. In a few moments 
Annixter was declaring at top voice his readiness to 
mortgage the crop of Quien Sabe, if necessary, for the 
sake of “ busting S. Behrman.” He could see no great 
obstacle in the way of controlling the nominating con- 
vention so far as securing the naming of two Railroad 
Commissioners was concerned. Two was all they 
needed. Probably it zvould cost money. You didn’t get 
something for nothing. It would cost them all a good 
deal more if they sat like lumps on a log and played 
tiddledy-winks while Shelgrim sold out from under them. 
Then there was this, too: the P. and S. W. were hard up 
just then. The shortage on the State’s wheat crop for 
the last two years had affected them, too. They were 
retrenching in expenditures all along the line. Hadn’t 
they just cut wages in all departments? There was this 
affair of Dyke’s to prove it. The railroad didn’t always 
act as a unit, either. There was always a party in it 
that opposed spending too much money. He would bet 
that party was strong just now. He was kind of sick 
himself of being kicked by S. Behrman. Hadn’t that 
pip turned up on his ranch that very day to bully him 
about his own line fence? Next he would be telling him 
what kind of clothes he ought to wear. Harran had the 
right idea. Somebody had got to be busted mighty soon 
nov»r and he didn’t propose that it should be he. 


112 


The Octopus 

Now you are talking something like sense/^ observed 
Osterman. “ I thought you would see it like that when 
you got my idea/' 

“ Your idea, your idea! " cried Annixter. “ Why, I've 
had this idea myself for over three years/' 

“ What about Disbrow? " asked Harran, hastening to 
interrupt. “ Why do we want to see Disbrow? " 

“ Disbrow is the political man for the Denver, Pueblo, 
and Mojave,” answered Osterman, “ and you see it's like 
this: the Mojave road don’t run up into the valley at all. 
Their terminus is way to the south of us, and they don't 
care anything about grain rates through the San Joaquin. 
They don't care how anti-railroad the Commission is, 
because the Commission's rulings can’t affect them. But 
they divide traffic with the P. and S. W. in the southern 
part of the State and they have a good deal of influence 
with that road. I want to get the Mojave road, through 
Disbrow, to recommend a Commissioner of our choosing 
to the P. and S. W. and have the P. and S. W. adopt him 
as their own.” 

“ Who, for instance? ” 

Darrell, that Los Angeles man — remember? ” 

'' Well, Darrell is no particular friend of Disbrow,” 
said Annixter. “Why should Disbrow take him up?” 

“ Prc^-cisely,” cried Osterman. “We make it worth 
Disbrow’s while to do it. We go to him and say, * Mr. 
Disbrow, you manage the politics for the Mojave rail- 
road, and what you say goes with your Board of Direc- 
tors. We want you to adopt our candidate for Railroad 
Commissioner for the third district. How much do you 
want for doing it? ' I know we can buy Disbrow. That 
gives us one Commissioner. We need not bother about 
that any more. In the first district we don’t make any 
move at all. We let the political managers of the P. and 
S. W. nominate whoever they like. Then we concen- 


A Story of California II3 

trate all our efforts to putting in our man in the second 
district. There is where the big fight will come.’’ 

“ I see perfectly well what you mean, Mr. Osterman,*^ 
observed Magnus, “ but make no mistake, sir, as to my 
attitude in this business. You may count me as out of 
it entirely.’’ 

Well, suppose we win,” put in Annixter truculently, 
already acknowledging himself as involved in the pro- 
posed undertaking; “ suppose we win and get low rates 
for hauling grain. How about you, then? You count 
yourself in then, don’t you? You get all the benefit of 
lower rates without sharing any of the risks we take to 
secure them. No, nor any of the expense, either. No, 
you won’t dirty your fingers with helping us put this deal 
through, but you won’t be so cursed particular when it 
comes to sharing the profits, will you?” 

Magnus rose abruptly to his full height, the nostrils 
of his thin, hawk-like nose vibrating, his smooth-shaven 
face paler than ever. 

“ Stop right where you are, sir,” he exclaimed. ** You 
forget yourself, Mr. Annixter. Please understand that 
I tolerate such words as you have permitted yourself to 
make use of from no man, not even from my guest. I 
shall ask you to apologise.” 

In an instant he dominated the entire group, imposing 
Respect that was as much fear as admiration. No one 
made response. For the moment he was the Master 
again, the Leader. Like so many delinquent school- 
boys, the others cowered before him, ashamed, put to 
confusion, unable to find their tongues. In that brief 
instant of silence following upon Magnus’s outburst, and 
while he held them subdued and over-mastered, the 
fabric of their scheme of corruption and dishonesty 
trembled to its base. It was the last protest of the Old 
School, rising up there in denunciation of the new order 
g 


The Octopus 


114 

of things, the statesman opposed to the politician; hon- 
esty, rectitude, uncompromising integrity, prevailing for 
the last time against the devious manoeuvring, the evil 
communications, the rotten expediency of a corrupted 
institution. 

For a few seconds no one answered. Then, Annixter, 
moving abruptly and uneasily in his place, muttered: 

“ I spoke upon provocation. If you like, we’ll con- 
sider it unsaid. I don’t know what’s going to become of 
us — go out of business, I presume.” 

“ I understand Magnus all right,” put in Osterman. 
“ He don’t have to go into this thing, if it’s against his 
conscience. That’s all right. Magnus can stay out if he 
wants to, but that won’t prevent us going ahead and see- 
ing what we can do. Only there’s this about it.” He 
turned again to Magnus, speaking with every degree of 
earnestness, every appearance of conviction. “ I did 
not deny. Governor, from the very start that this would 
mean bribery. But you don’t suppose that / like the idea 
either. If there was one legitimate hope that was yet 
left untried, no matter how forlorn it was, I would try it. 
But there’s not It is literally and soberly true that 
every means of help — every honest means — has been 
attempted. Shelgrim is going to cinch us. Grain rates 
are increasing, while, on the other hand, the price of 
wheat is sagging lower and lower all the time. If we 
don’t do something we are ruined.” 

Osterman paused for a moment, allowing precisely the 
right number of seconds to elapse, then altering and 
lowering his voice, added: 

I respect the Governor’s principles. I admire them. 
They do him every degree of credit.” Then, turning di- 
rectly to Magnus, he concluded with, But I only want 
you to ask yourself, sir, if, at such a crisis, one ought to 
think of oneself, to consider purely personal motives in 


A Story of California 115 

such a desperate situation as this ? Now, we want you 
with us, Governor; perhaps not openly, if you don’t 
wish it, but tacitly, at least. I won’t ask you for an 
answer to-night, but what I do ask of you is to consider 
this matter seriously and think over the whole business. 
Will you do it? ” 

Osterman ceased definitely to speak, leaning forward 
across the table, his eyes fixed on Magnus’s face. There 
was a silence. Outside, the rain fell continually with 
an even, monotonous murmur. In the group of men 
around the table no one stirred nor spoke. They looked 
steadily at Magnus, who, for the moment, kept his glance 
fixed thoughtfully upon the table before him. In an- 
other moment he raised his head and looked from face 
to face around the group. After all, these were his 
neighbours, his friends, men with whom he had been 
upon the closest terms of association. In a way they 
represented what now had come to be his world. His 
single swift glance took in the men, one after another. 
Annixter, rugged, crude, sitting awkwardly and uncom- 
fortably in his chair, his unhandsome face, with its out- 
thrust lower lip and deeply cleft masculine chin, flushed 
and eager, his yellow hair disordered, the one tuft on the 
crown standing stiffly forth like the feather in an Indian’s 
scalp lock; Broderson, vaguely combing at his long 
beard with a persistent maniacal gesture, distressed, 
troubled and uneasy; Osterman, with his comedy face, 
the face of a music-hall singer, his head bald and set off 
by his great red ears, leaning back in his place, softly 
cracking the knuckle of a forefinger, and, last of all and 
close to his elbow, his son, his support, his confidatit and 
companion, Harran, so like himself, with his own erect, 
fine carriage, his thin, beak-like nose and his blond hair, 
with its tendency to curl in a forward direction in front 
of the ears, young, strong, courageous, full of the prom- 


Ii6 The Octopus 

ise of the future years. His blue eyes looked straight 
into his father's with what Magnus could fancy a glance 
of appeal. Magnus could see that expression in the 
faces of the others very plainly. They looked to him as 
their natural leader, their chief who was to bring them 
out from this abominable trouble which was closing in 
upon them, and in them all he saw many types. They 
— these men around his table on that night of the first 
rain of a coming season — seemed to stand in his imagi- 
nation for many others — all the farmers, ranchers, and 
wheat growers of the great San Joaquin. Their words 
were the words of a whole community; their distress, 
the distress of an entire State, harried beyond the bounds 
of endurance, driven to the wall, coerced, exploited, 
harassed to the limits of exasperation. 

“ Twill think of it,” he said, then hastened to add, but 
I can tell you beforehand that you may expect only a 
refusal.” 

After Magnus had spoken, there was a prolonged si- 
lence. The conference seemed of itself to have come to 
an end for that evening. Presley lighted another cigar- 
ette from the butt of the one he had been smoking, and 
the cat. Princess Nathalie, disturbed by his movement 
and by a whiff of drifting smoke, jumped from his knee 
to the floor and picking her way across the room to An- 
nixter, rubbed gently against his legs, her tail in the air, 
her back delicately arched. No doubt she thought it 
time to settle herself for the night, and as Annixter gave 
no indication of vacating his chair, she chose this way of 
cajoling him into ceding his place to her. But Annixter 
was irritated at the Princess’s attentions, misunderstand- 
ing their motive. 

“ Get out ! ” he exclaimed, lifting his feet to the rung 
of the chair. Lord love me, but I sure do hate a 
cat.” 


II7 


A Story of California 

** By the way,” observed Osterman, I passed Gen- 
slinger by the gate as I came in to-night. Had he been 
here?” 

“ Yes, he was here,” said Harran, and — ” but An- 
nixter took the words out of his mouth. 

“ He says there’s some talk of the railroad selling us 
their sections this winter.” 

Oh, he did, did he? ” exclaimed Osterman, interested 
at once. “ Where did he hear that? ” 

“Where does a railroad paper get its news? From 
the General Office, I suppose.” 

“ I hope he didn’t get it straight from headquarters 
that the land was to be graded at twenty dollars an acre,” 
murmured Broderson. 

“ What’s that? ” demanded Osterman. “ Twenty dol- 
lars! Here, put me on, somebody. What’s all up? 
What did Genslinger say? ” 

“ Oh, you needn’t get scared,” said Annixter. “ Gen- 
slinger don’t know, that’s all. He thinks there was no 
understanding that the price of the land should not be 
advanced when the P. and S. W. came to sell to us.” 

“ Oh,” muttered Osterman relieved. Magnus, who 
had gone out into the office on the other side of the glass- 
roofed hallway, returned with a long, yellow envelope in 
his hand, stuffed with newspaper clippings and thin, 
closely printed pamphlets. 

“ Here is the circular,” he remarked, drawing out one 
of the pamphlets. “ The conditions of settlement to 
which the railroad obligated itself are very explicit.” 

He ran over the pages of the circular, then read aloud : 

* The Company invites settlers to go upon its lands before 
patents are issued or the road is completed^ and intends in such 
cases to sell to them in preference to any other applicants and at 
a price based upon the value of the land without improvements' 
and on the other page here,” he remarked, “ they refer to this 


ii8 


The Octopus 


again. ^ In ascertaining the value of the lands ^ any improve^ 
ments that a settler or any other person may have on the lands 
will not be taken into consideration^ neither will the price be 
increased in consequence thereof. . , . Settlers are thus 

insured that in addition to being accorded the first privilege of 
purchase^ at the graded price^ they will also be protected in 
their improvements^ And here,” he commented, - in Sec- 
tion IX. it reads, ^ The lands are not uniform in price ^ but 
are offered at various figures from ^2.50 upward per acre. 
Usually land covered with tall timber is held at $5.00 per acre^ 
and that with pine at $10.00. Most is for sale at $2.50 and 
$5.00.” 

“ When you come to read that carefully,” hazarded old 
Broderson, “ it — it’s not so very reassuring. * Most is 
for sale at two-fifty an acre,’ it says. That don’t mean 
' all,’ that only means some. I wish now that I had se- 
cured a more iron-clad agreement from the P. and S. W. 
when I took up its sections on my ranch, and — and Gen- 
slinger is in a position to know the intentions of the rail- 
road. At least, he — he — he is in touch with them. All 
newspaper men are. Those, I mean, who are subsidised 
by the General Office. But, perhaps, Genslinger isn’t 
subsidised, I don’t know. I — I am not sure. Maybe — 
perhaps ” 

“ Oh, you don’t know and you do know, and maybe 
and perhaps, and you’re not so sure,” vociferated An- 
nixter. “ How about ignoring the value of our improve- 
ments? Nothing hazy about that statement, I guess, ^t 
says in so many words that any improvements we maxe 
will not be considered when the land is appraised and 
that’s the same thing, isn’t it? The unimproved land is 
worth two-fifty an acre; only timber land is worth more 
and there’s none too much timber about here.” 

“ Well, one thing at a time,” said Harran. “ The thing 
for us now is to get into this primary election and the 


A Story of California 119 

convention and see if we can push our men for Railroad 
Commissioners/^ 

Right,” declared Annixter. He rose, stretching his 
arms above his head. “ Fve about talked all the wind 
out of me,” he said. “ Think I’ll be moving along. It’s 
pretty near midnight.” 

But when Magnus’s guests turned their attention to 
the matter of returning to their different ranches, they 
abruptly realised that the downpour had doubled and 
trebled in its volume since earlier in the evening. The 
fields and roads were veritable seas of viscid mud, the 
night absolutely black-dark; assuredly not a night in 
which to venture out. Magnus insisted that the three 
ranchers should put up at Los Muertos. Osterman ac- 
cepted at once, Annixter, after an interminable discus- 
sion, allowed himself to be persuaded, in the end accept- 
ing as though granting a favour. Broderson protested 
that his wife, who was not well, would expect him to re- 
turn that night and would, no doubt, fret if he did not 
appear. Furthermore, he lived close by, at the junction 
of the County and Lower Road. He put a sack over his 
head and shoulders, persistently declining Magnus’s of- 
fered umbrella and rubber coat, and hurried away, re- 
marking that he had no foreman on his ranch and had to 
be up and about at five the next morning to put his men 
to work. 

“Fool!” muttered Annixter when the old man had 
gone. “ Imagine farming a ranch the size of his with- 
out a foreman.” 

Harran showed Osterman and Annixter where they 
were to sleep, in adjoining rooms. Magnus soon after- 
ward retired. 

Osterman found an excuse for going to bed, but An- 
nixter and Harran remained in the latter’s room, in a 
haze of blue tobacco smoke, talking, talking. But at 


120 The Octopus 

length, at the end of all argument, Annixter got up, 
remarking: 

Well, Pm going to turn in. It’s nearly two o’clock.” 

He went to his room, closing the door, and Harran, 
opening his window to clear out the tobacco smoke, 
looked out for a moment across the country toward the 
south. 

The darkness was profound, impenetrable; the rain 
fell with an uninterrupted roar. Near at hand one 
could hear the sound of dripping eaves and foliage and 
die eager, sucking sound of the drinking earth, and 
jibruptly while Harran stood looking out, one hand upon 
^:he upraised sash, a great puff of the outside air invaded 
the room, odourous with the reek of the soaking earth, 
redolent with fertility, pungent, heavy, tepid. He closed 
the window again and sat for a few moments on the edge 
of the bed, one shoe in his hand, thoughtful and ab- 
sorbed, wondering if his father would involve himself 
in this new scheme, wondering if, after all, he wanted 
him to. 

But suddenly he was aware of a commotion, issuing 
from the direction of Annixter’s room, and the voice of 
Annixter himself upraised in expostulation and exas- 
peration. The door of the room to which Annixter had 
been assigned opened with a violent wrench and an 
angry voice exclaimed to anybody who would listen : 

“ Oh, yes, funny, isn’t it? In a way, it’s funny, and 
then, again, in a way it isn’t.” 

The door banged to so that all the windows of the 
house rattled in their frames. 

Harran hurried out into the dining-room and there 
met Presley and his father, who had been aroused as well 
by Annixter’s clamour. Osterman was there, too, his 
bald head gleaming like a bulb of ivory in the light of the 
lamp that Magnus carried. 


A Story of California 12 1 

“ What’s all up? ” demanded Osterman. “ Whatever 
in the world is the matter with Buck? ” 

Confused and terrible sounds came from behind the 
door of Annixter’s room. A prolonged monologue of 
grievance, broken by explosions of wrath and the vague 
noise of some one in a furious hurry. All at once and 
before Harran had a chance to knock on the door, An- 
nJxter flung it open. His face was blazing with anger, 
his outthrust lip more prominent than ever, his wiry, 
yellow hair in disarray, the tuft on the crown sticking 
straight into the air like the upraised hackles of an angry 
hound. Evidently he had been dressing himself with the 
most headlong rapidity ; he had not yet put on his coat 
and vest, but carried them over his arm, while with his 
disengaged hand he kept hitching his suspenders over 
his shoulders with a persistent and hypnotic gesture. 
Without a moment’s pause he gave vent to his indigna- 
tion in a torrent of words. 

Ah, yes, in my bed, sloop, aha! I know the man who 
put it there,” he went on, glaring at Osterman, “ and 
that man is a pip. Sloop! Slimy, disgusting stuff; you 
heard me say I didn’t like it when the Chink passed it 
to me at dinner — and just for that reason you put it in my 
bed, and I stick my feet into it when I turn in. Funny, 
isn’t it? Oh, yes, too funny for any use. I’d laugh a 
little louder if I was you.” 

''Well, Buck,” protested Harran, as he noticed the 
hat in Annixter’s hand, "you’re not going home just 
for ” 

Annixter turned on him with a shout. 

" ni get plumb out of here,” he trumpeted. " I won’t 
stay here another minute.” 

He swung into his waistcoat and coat, scrabbling at 
the buttons in the violence of his emotions. "And I 
don’t know but what it will make me sick again to go 


122 


The Octopus 

out in a night like this. No, I won’t stay. Some things 
are funny, and then, again, there are some things that are 
not. Ah, yes, sloop! Well, that’s all right. I can be 
funny, too, when you come to that. You don’t get a 
cent of money out of me. You can do your dirty bribery 
in your own dirty way. I won’t come into this scheme 
at all. I wash my hands of the whole business. It’s 
rotten and it’s wild-eyed; it’s dirt from start to finish; 
and you’ll all land in State’s prison. You can count me 
out.” 

“ But, Buck, look here, you crazy fool,” cried Harran, 
“ I don’t know who put that stuff in your bed, but I’m 
not going to let you go back to Quien Sabe in a rain like 
this.” 

“ / know who put it in,” clamoured the other, shaking 
his fists, “ and don’t call me Buck and I’ll do as I please. 
I will go back home. I’ll get plumb out of here. Sorry 
I came. Sorry I ever lent myself to such a disgusting, 
dishonest, dirty bribery game as this all to-night. I won’t 
put a dime into it, no, not a penny.” 

He stormed to the door leading out upon the porch, 
deaf to all reason. Harran and Presley followed him, 
trying to dissuade him from going home at that time of 
night and in such a storm, but Annixter was not to be 
placated. He stamped across to the barn where his 
horse and buggy had been stabled, splashing through the 
puddles under foot, going out of his way to drench him- 
self, refusing even to allow Presley and Harran to help 
him harness the horse. 

“ What’s the use of making a fool of yourself, Annix- 
ter?” remonstrated Presley, as Annixter backed the 
horse from the stall. ** You act just like a ten-year-old 
boy. If Osterman wants to play the goat, why should 
you help him out ? ” 

** He’s a pip” vociferated Annixter. ** You don’t 


123 


A Story of California 

understand, Presley. It runs in my family to hate any- 
thing sticky. It’s — it’s — it’s heredity. How would you 
like to get into bed at two in the morning and jam your 
feet down into a slimy mess like that? Oh, no. It’s not 
so funny then. And you mark my words, Mr. Harran 
Derrick,” he continued, as he climbed into the buggy, 
shaking the whip toward Harran, “ this business we 
talked over to-night — I’m out of it. It’s yellow. It’s too 
cursed dishonest.” 

He cut the horse across the back with the whip and 
drove out into the pelting rain. In a few seconds the 
sound of his buggy wheels was lost in the muffled roar 
of the downpour. 

Harran and Presley closed the barn and returned to 
the house, sheltering themselves under a tarpaulin car- 
riage cover. Once inside, Harran went to remonstrate 
with Osterman, who was still up. Magnus had again 
retired. The house had fallen quiet again. 

As Presley crossed the dining-room on the way to his 
own apartment in the second story of the house, he 
paused for a moment, looking about him. In the dull 
light of the lowered lamps, the redwood panelling of 
the room showed a dark crimson as though stained 
with blood. On the massive slab of the dining table the 
half-emptied glasses and bottles stood about in the con- 
fusion in which they had been left, reflecting themselves 
deep into the polished wood; the glass doors of the case 
of stuffed birds was a subdued shimmer; the many- 
coloured Navajo blanket over the couch seemed a mere 
patch of brown. 

Around the table the chairs in which the men had sat 
throughout the evening still ranged themselves in a semi- 
circle, vaguely suggestive of the conference of the past 
few hours, with all its possibilities of good and evil, its 
significance of a future big with portent. The room was 


124 


The Octopus 

still. Only on the cushions of the chair that Annixter 
had occupied, the cat, Princess Nathalie, at last comfort- 
ably settled in her accustomed place, dozed complacently, 
her paws tucked under her breast, filling the deserted 
room with the subdued murmur of her contented purr. 


On the Quien Sabe ranch, in one of its western divi- 
sions, near the line fence that divided it from the Oster- 
man holding, Vanamee was harnessing the horses to the 
plough to which he had been assigned two days before, 
a stable-boy from the division barn helping him. 

Promptly discharged from the employ of the sheep- 
raisers after the lamentable accident near the Long 
Trestle, Vanamee had presented himself to Harran, ask- 
ing for employment. The season was beginning; on all 
the ranches work was being resumed. The rain had put 
the ground into admirable condition for ploughing, and 
Annixter, Broderson, and Osterman all had their gangs 
at work. Thus, Vanamee was vastly surprised to find 
Los Muertos idle, the horses still in the barns, the men 
gathering in the shade of the bunk-house and eating- 
house, smoking, dozing, or going aimlessly about, their 
arms dangling. The ploughs for which Magnus and 
Harran were waiting in a fury of impatience had not yet 
arrived, and since the management of Los Muertos had 
counted upon having these in hand long before this time, 
no provision had been made for keeping the old stock in 
repair; many of these old ploughs were useless, broken, 
and out of order; some had been sold. It could not be 
said definitely when the new ploughs would arrive. Har- 
ran had decided to wait one week longer, and then, in 
case of their non-appearance, to buy a consignment of 
the old style of plough from the dealers in Bonneville. 
He could afford to lose the money better than he could 
fcfford to lose the season. 


126 


The Octopus 


Failing of work on Los Muertos, Vanamee had gon% 
to Quien Sabe. Annixter, whom he had spoken to firstj 
had sent him across the ranch to one of his division 
superintendents, and this latter, after assuring himself 
of Vanamee’s familiarity with horses and his previous 
experience — even though somewhat remote — on Los 
Muertos, had taken him on as a driver of one of the 
gang ploughs, then at work on his division. 

The evening before, when the foreman had blown his 
whistle at six o’clock, the long line of ploughs had halted 
upon the instant, and the drivers, unharnessing their 
teams, had taken them back to the division barns — leav- 
ing the ploughs as they were in the furrows. But an hour 
after daylight the next morning the work was resumed. 
After breakfast, Vanamee, riding one horse and leading 
the others, had returned to the line of ploughs together 
with the other drivers. Now he was busy harnessing 
the team. At the division blacksmith shop — tempora- 
rily put up — he had been obliged to wait while one of his 
lead horses was shod, and he had thus been delayed quite 
five minutes. Nearly all the other teams were har- 
nessed, the drivers on their seats, waiting for the fore- 
man’s signal. 

All ready here? ” inquired the foreman, driving up to 
Vanamee’s team in his buggy. 

“ All ready, sir,” answered Vanamee, buckling the last 
strap. 

He climbed to his seat, shaking out the reins, and turn- 
ing about, looked back along the line, then all around 
him at the landscape inundated with the brilliant glow of 
the early morning. 

The day was fine. Since the first rain of the season, 
there had been no other. Now the sky was without a 
cloud, pale blue, delicate, luminous, scintillating with 
morning. The great brown earth turned a huge flank to 


A Story of California \2*f 

it, exhaling the moisture of the early dew. The atmos- 
phere, washed clean of dust and mist, was translucent as 
crystal. Far off to the east, the hills on the other side 
of Broderson Creek stood out against the pallid saffron 
of the horizon as flat and as sharply outlined as if pasted 
on the sky. The campanile of the ancient Mission of 
San Juan seemed as fine as frost work. All about be- 
tween the horizons, the carpet of the land unrolled itself 
to infinity. But now it was no longer parched with heat, 
cracked and warped by a merciless sun, powdered with 
dust. The rain had done its work; not a clod that was 
not swollen with fertility, not a fissure that did not exhale 
the sense of fecundity. One could not take a dozen 
steps upon the ranches without the brusque sensation 
that underfoot the land was alive ; roused at last from its 
sleep, palpitating with the desire of reproduction. Deep 
down there in the recesses of the soil, the great heart 
throbbed once more, thrilling with passion, vibrating 
with desire, offering itself to the caress of the plough, 
insistent, eager, imperious. Dimly one felt the deep- ^ 
seated trouble of the earth, the uneasy agitation of its 
members, the hidden tumult of its womb, demanding to 
be made fruitful, to reproduce, to disengage the eternal 
renascent germ of Life that stirred and struggled in its 
loins. 

The ploughs, thirty-five in number, each drawn by its 
team of ten, stretched in an interminable line, nearly a 
quarter of a mile in length, behind and ahead of Van- 
amee. They were arranged, as it were, en echelon, not in 
file — not one directly behind the other, but each succeed- 
ing plough its own width farther in the field than the one 
in front of it. Each of these ploughs held five shears, 
so that when the entire company was in motion, one hun- 
dred and seventy-five furrows were made at the same 
instant. At a distance, the ploughs resembled a great 


128 


The Octopus 


column of field artillery. Each driver was in his place, 
his glance alternating between his horses and the fore- 
man nearest at hand. Other foremen, in their buggies 
or buckboards, were at intervals along the line, like 
battery lieutenants. Annixter himself, on horseback, in 
boots and campaign hat, a cigar in his teeth, overlooked 
the scene. 

The division superintendent, on the opposite side of 
the line, galloped past to a position at the head. For a 
long moment there was a silence. A sense of prepared- 
ness ran from end to end of the column. All things were 
ready, each man in his place. The day^s work was about 
to begin. 

Suddenly, from a distance at the head of the line came 
the shrill trilling of a whistle. At once the foreman near- 
est Vanamee repeated it, at the same time turning down 
the line, and waving one arm. The signal was repeated, 
whistle answering whistle, till the sounds lost themselves 
in the distance. At once the line of ploughs lost its im- 
mobility, moving forward, getting slowly under way, the 
horses straining in the traces. A prolonged movement 
rippled from team to team, disengaging in its passage a 
multitude of sounds — the click of buckles, the creak of 
straining leather, the subdued clash of machinery, the 
cracking of whips, the deep breathing of nearly four hun- 
dred horses, the abrupt commands and cries of the driv- 
ers, and, last of all, the prolonged, soothing murmur of 
the thick brown earth turning steadily from the multi- 
tude of advancing shears. 

The ploughing thus commenced, continued. The sun 
rose higher. Steadily the hundred iron hands kneaded 
and furrowed and stroked the brown, humid earth, the 
hundred iron teeth bit deep into the Titan’s flesh. 
Perched on his seat, the moist living reins slipping and 
tugging in his hands, Vanamee, in the midst of this 


129 


A Story of California 

steady confusion of constantly varying sensation, sight 
interrupted by sound, sound mingling with sight, on this 
swaying, vibrating seat, quivering with the prolonged 
thrill of the earth, lapsed to a sort of pleasing numbness, 
in a sense, hypnotised by the weaving maze of things in 
which he found himself involved. To keep his team at 
an even, regular gait, maintaining the precise interval, 
to run his furrows as closely as possible to those already 
made by the plough in front — this for the moment was 
the entire sum of his duties. But while one part of his 
brain, alert and watchful, took cognisance of these mat- 
ters, all the greater part was lulled and stupefied with the 
long monotony of the affair. 

The ploughing, now in full swing, enveloped him in a 
vague, slow-moving whirl of things. Underneath him 
was the jarring, jolting, trembling machine; not a clod 
was turned, not an obstacle encountered, that he did not 
receive the swift impression of it through all his body, 
the very friction of the damp soil, sliding incessantly 
from the shiny surface of the shears, seemed to repro- 
duce itself in his finger-tips and along the back of his 
head. He heard the horse-hoofs by the myriads crush- 
ing down easily, deeply, into the loam, the prolonged 
clinking of trace-chains, the working of the smooth 
brown flanks in the harness, the clatter of wooden hames, 
the champing of bits, the click of iron shoes against 
pebbles, the brittle stubble of the surface ground crack- 
ling and snapping as the furrows turned, the sonorous, 
steady breaths wrenched from the deep, labouring chests, 
strap-bound, shining with sweat, and all along the line 
the voices of the men talking to the horses. Everywhere 
there were visions of glossy brown backs, straining, 
heaving, swollen with muscle; harness streaked with 
specks of froth, broad, cup-shaped hoofs, heavy with 
brown loam, men's faces red with tan, blue overalls 


J3<> The Octopub 

spotted with axle-grease; muscled hands, the knuckles 
whitened in their grip on the reins, and through it all 
the ammoniacal smell of the horses, the bitter reek of 
perspiration of beasts and men, the aroma of warm 
leather, the scent of dead stubble — and stronger and 
more penetrating than everything else, the heavy, ener- 
vating odour of the upturned, living earth. 

At intervals, from the tops of one of the rare, low 
swells of the land, Vanamee overlooked a wider horizon. 
On the other divisions of Quien Sabe the same work was 
in progress. Occasionally he could see another column 
of ploughs in the adjoining division — sometimes so close 
at hand that the subdued murmur of its movements 
reached his ear; sometimes so distant that it resolved it- 
self into a long, brown streak upon the grey of the 
ground. Farther off to the west on the Osterman ranch 
other columns came and went, and, once, from the crest 
of the highest swell on his division, Vanamee caught a 
distant glimpse of the Broderson ranch. There, too, 
moving specks indicated that the ploughing was under 
way. And farther away still, far off there beyond the 
fine line of the horizons, over the curve of the globe, the 
shoulder of the earth, he knew were other ranches, and 
beyond these others, and beyond these still others, the 
immensities multiplying to infinity. 

Everywhere throughout the great San Joaquin, unseen 
and unheard, a thousand ploughs up-stirred the land, 
tens of thousands of shears clutched deep into the warm, 
moist soil. 

It was the long stroking caress, vigorous, male, 
powerful, for which the Earth seemed panting. The 
heroic embrace of a multitude of iron hands, gripping 
deep into the brown, warm flesh of the land that quivered 
responsive and passionate under this rude advance, so 
robust as to be almost an assault, so violent as to be 


13 ^ 


A Story of California 

veritably brutal. There, under the sun and under the 
speckless sheen of the sky, the wooing of the Titan be- 
gan, the vast primal passion, the two world-forces, the 
elemental Male and Female, locked in a colossal em- 
brace, at grapples in the throes of an infinite desire, at 
once terrible and divine, knowing no law, untamed, sav- 
age, natural, sublime. 

From time to time the gang in which Vanamee worked 
halted on the signal from foreman or overseer. The 
horses came to a standstill, the vague clamour of the 
work lapsed away. Then the minutes passed. The 
whole work hung suspended. All up and down the line 
one demanded what had happened. The division super- 
intendent galloped past, perplexed and anxious. For 
the moment, one of the ploughs was out of order, a bolt 
had slipped, a lever refused to work, or a machine had 
become immobilised in heavy ground, or a horse had 
lamed himself. Once, even, toward noon, an entire 
plough was taken out of the line, so out of gear that a 
messenger had to be sent to the division forge to sum- 
mon the machinist. 

Annixter had disappeared. He had ridden farther 
on to the other divisions of his ranch, to watch the work 
in progress there. At twelve o’clock, according to his 
orders, all the division superintendents put themselves 
in communication with him by means of the telephone 
wires that connected each of the division houses, report- 
ing the condition of the work, the number of acres cov- 
ered, the prospects of each plough traversing its daily 
average of twenty miles. 

At half-past twelve, Vanamee and the rest of the driv- 
ers ate their lunch in the field, the tin buckets having 
been distributed to them that morning after breakfast. 
But in the evening, the routine of the previous day was 
repeated, and Vanamee, unharnessing his team, riding 


132 The Octopus 

one horse and leading the others, returned to the division 
barns and bunk-house. 

It was between six and seven o’clock. The half hun- 
dred men of the gang threw themselves upon the supper 
the Chinese cooks had set out in the shed of the eating- 
house, long as a bowling alley, unpainted, crude, the 
seats benches, the table covered with oil cloth. Over- 
head a half-dozen kerosene lamps flared and smoked. 

The table was taken as if by assault; the clatter of iron 
knives upon the tin plates was as the reverberation of 
hail upon a metal roof. The ploughmen rinsed their 
throats with great draughts of wine, and, their elbows 
wide, their foreheads flushed, resumed the attack upon 
the beef and bread, eating as though they would never 
have enough. All up and down the long table, where 
the kerosene lamps reflected themselves deep in the oil- 
cloth cover, one heard the incessant sounds of rnastica- 
tion, and saw the uninterrupted movement of great jaws. 
At every moment one or another of the men demanded 
a fresh portion of beef, another pint of wine, another 
half-loaf of bread. For upwards of an hour the gang 
ate. It was no longer a supper. It was a veritable 
barbecue, a crude and primitive feasting, barbaric, 
homeric. 

But in all this scene Vanamee saw nothing repulsive. 
Presley would have abhorred it — this feeding of the 
People, this gorging of the human animal, eager for its 
meat. Vanamee, simple, uncomplicated, living so close 
to nature and the rudimentary life, understood its sig- 
nificance. He knew very well that within a short half- 
hour after this meal the men would throw themselves 
down in their bunks to sleep without moving, inert and 
stupefied with fatigue, till the morning. Work, food, 
and sleep, all life reduced to its bare essentials, uncom- 
honest, healthy. They were strong, these men, 


133 


A Story of California 

with the strength of the soil they worked, in touch with 
the essential things, back again to the starting point of 
civilisation, coarse, vital, real, and sane. 

For a brief moment immediately after the meal, pipes 
were lit, and the air grew thick with fragrant tobacco 
smoke. On a corner of the dining-room table, a game 
of poker was begun. One of the drivers, a Swede, pro- 
duced an accordion; a group on the steps of the bunk- 
house listened, with alternate gravity and shouts of 
laughter, to the acknowledged story-teller of the gang. 
But soon the men began to turn in, stretching them- 
selves at full length on the horse blankets in the racklike 
bunks. The sounds of heavy breathing increased stead- 
ily, lights were put out, and before the afterglow had 
faded from the sky, the gang was asleep. 

Vanamee, however, remained awake. The night was 
fine, warm; the sky silver-grey with starlight. By and 
by there would be a moon. In the first watch after the 
twilight, a faint puff of breeze came up out of the south. 
From all around, the heavy penetrating smell of the new- 
turned earth exhaled steadily into the darkness. After 
a while, when the moon came up, he could see the vast 
brown breast of the earth turn toward it. Far off, dis- 
tant objects came into view: The giant oak tree at 
Hooven^s ranch house near the irrigating ditch on Los 
Muertos, the skeleton-like tower of the windmill on An- 
nixter’s Home ranch, the clump of willows along Broder- 
son Creek close to the Long Trestle, and, last of all, the 
venerable tower of the Mission of San Juan on the high 
ground beyond the creek. 

Thitherward, like homing pigeons, Vanamee's 
thoughts turned irresistibly. Near to that tower, just 
beyond, in the little hollow, hidden now from his sight, 
was the Seed ranch where Angele Varian had lived. 
Straining his eyes, peering across the intervening levels, 




iThe Octopus 

Vanamee fancied he could almost see the line of vener- 
able pear trees in whose shadow she had been accus- 
tomed to wait for him. On many such a night as this 
he had crossed the ranches to find her there. His mind 
went back to that wonderful time of his life sixteen 
years before this, when Angele was alive, when they two 
were involved in the sweet intricacies of a love so fine, 
so pure, so marvellous that it seemed to them a miracle, 
a manifestation, a thing veritably divine, put into the life 
of them and the hearts of them by God Himself. To 
that they had been born. For this love’s sake they had 
come into the world, and the mingling of their lives was 
to be the Perfect Life, the intended, ordained union of 
the soul of man with the soul of woman, indissoluble, 
harmonious as music, beautiful beyond all thought, a 
\ foretaste of Heaven, a hostage of immortality. 

No, he, Vanamee, could never, never forget; never was 
the edge of his grief to lose its sharpness; never would 
the lapse of time blunt the tooth of his pain. Once 
more, as he sat there, looking off across the ranches, his 
eyes fixed on the ancient campanile of the Mission 
church, the anguish that would not die leaped at his 
throat, tearing at his heart, shaking him and rending 
him v/ith a violence as fierce and as profound as if it all 
had been but yesterday. The ache returned to his heart, 
a physical keen pain; his hands gripped tight together, 
twisting, interlocked, his eyes filled with tears, his whole 
body shaken and riven from head to heel. 

He had lost her. God had not meant it, after all. The 
whole matter had been a mistake. That vast, wonderful 
love that had come upon them had been only the flimsiest 
mockery. Abruptly Vanamee rose. He knew the night 
that was before him. At intervals throughout the course 
of his prolonged wanderings, in the desert, on the mesa, 
deep in the canon, lost and forgotten on the flanks of 


135 


A Story of California 

unnamed mountains, alone under the stars and under 
the moon’s white eye, these hours came to him, his 
grief recoiling upon him like the recoil of a vast and 
terrible engine. Then he must fight out the night, 
wrestling with his sorrow, praying sometimes, inco- 
herent, hardly conscious, asking Why ” of the night 
and of the stars. 

Such another night had come to him now. Until dawn 
he knew he must struggle with his grief, torn with memo- 
ries, his imagination assaulted with visions of a vanished 
happiness. If this paroxysm of sorrow was to assail him 
again that night, there was but one place for him to be. 
He would go to the Mission — he would see Father Sar- 
ria; he would pass the night in the deep shadow of the 
aged pear trees in the Mission garden. 

He struck out across Quien Sabe, his face, the face of 
an ascetic, lean, brown, infinitely sad, set toward the 
Mission church. In about an hour he reached and 
crossed the road that led northward from Guadalajara 
toward the Seed ranch, and, a little farther on, forded 
Broderson Creek where it ran through one corner of the 
Mission land. He climbed the hill and halted, out of 
breath from his brisk wall, at the end of the colonnade 
of the Mission itself. 

Until this moment Vanamee had not trusted himself 
to see the Mission at night. On the occasion of his first 
daytime visit with Presley, he had hurried away even 
before the twilight had set in, not daring for the moment 
to face the crowding phantoms that in his imagination 
filled the Mission garden after dark. In the daylight, 
the place had seemed strange to him. None of his asso- 
ciations with the old building and its surroundings were 
those of sunlight and brightness. Whenever, during his 
long sojourns in the wilderness of the Southwest, he had 
called up the picture in the eye of his mind, it had always 


136 The Octopus 

appeared to him in the dim mystery of moonless nights, 
the venerable pear trees black with shadow, the fountain 
a thing to be heard rather than seen. 

But as yet he had not entered the garden. That lay 
on the other side of the Mission. Vanamee passed down 
the colonnade, with its uneven pavement of worn red 
bricks, to the last door by the belfry tower, and rang the 
little bell by pulling the leather thong that hung from a 
hole in the door above the knob. 

But the maid-servant, who, after a long interval, 
opened the door, blinking and confused at being roused 
from her sleep, told Vanamee that Sarria was not in his 
room. Vanamee, however, was known to her as the 
priest’s protege and great friend, and she allowed him to 
enter, telling him that, no doubt, he would find Sarria in 
the church itself. The servant led the way down the cool 
adobe passage to a larger room that occupied the entir^ 
width of the bottom of the belfry tower, and whence a 
flight of aged steps led upward into the dark. At the 
foot of the stairs was a door opening into the church. 
The servant admitted Vanamee, closing the door behind 
her. 

The interior of the Mission, a great oblong of white- 
washed adobe with a flat ceiling, was lighted dimly by 
the sanctuary lamp that hung from three long chains 
just over the chancel rail at the far end of the church, and 
by two or three cheap kerosene lamps in brackets of imi- 
tation bronze. All around the walls was the inevitable 
series of pictures representing the Stations of the Cross. 
They were of a hideous crudity of design and composi- 
tion, yet were wrought out with an innocent, unquestion- 
ing sincerity that was not without its charm. Each pic- 
ture framed alike in gilt, bore its suitable inscription in 
staring black letters. Simon, The Cyrenean, Helps 
Jesus to Carry His Cross.” Saint Veronica Wipes the 


137 


A Story of California 

Face of Jesus.’’ Jesus Falls for the Fourth Time,” and 
so on. Half-way up the length of the church the pews 
began, coffin-like boxes of blackened oak, shining from 
years of friction, each with its door; while over them, and 
built out from the wall, was the pulpit, with its tarnished 
gilt sounding-board above it, like the raised cover of a 
great hat-box. Between the pews, in the aisle, the violent 
vermilion of a strip of ingrain carpet assaulted the eye. 
Farther on were the steps to the altar, the chancel rail of 
worm-riddled oak, the high altar, with its napery from 
the bargain counters of a San Francisco store, the mas- 
sive silver candlesticks, each as much as one man could 
lift, the gift of a dead Spanish queen, and, last, the pic- 
tures of the chancel, the Virgin in a glory, a Christ in 
agony on the cross, and St. John the Baptist, the patron 
saint of the Mission, the San Juan Bautista, of the early 
days, a gaunt grey figure, in skins, two fingers upraised 
in the gesture of benediction. 

The air of the place was cool and damp, and heavy 
with the flat, sweet scent of stale incense smoke. It was 
of a vault-like stillness, and the closing of the door be- 
hind Vanamee reechoed from corner to corner with a 
prolonged reverberation of thunder. 

However, Father Sarria was not in the church. Van- 
amee took a couple of turns the length of the aisle, look- 
ing about into the chapels on either side of the chancel. 
But the building was deserted. The priest had been 
there recently, nevertheless, for the altar furniture was 
in disarray, as though he had been rearranging it but a 
moment before. On both sides of the church and half- 
way up their length, the walls were pierced by low arch- 
ways, in which were massive wooden doors, clamped 
with iron bolts. One of these doors, on the pulpit side 
of the church, stood ajar, and stepping to it and pushing 
it wide open, Vanamee looked diagonally across a little 


>38 


The Octopus 


patch of vegetables — beets, radishes, and lettuce — to the 
rear of the building that had once contained the cloisters, 
and through an open window saw Father Sarria dili- 
gently polishing the silver crucifix that usually stood on 
the high altar. Vanamee did not call to the priest. Put- 
ting a finger to either temple, he fixed his eyes steadily 
upon him for a moment as he moved about at his work. 
In a few seconds he closed his eyes, but only part way. 
The pupils contracted; his forehead lowered to an ex- 
pression of poignant intensity. Soon afterward he saw 
the priest pause abruptly in the act of drawing the cover 
over the crucifix, looking about him from side to side. 
He turned again to his work, and again came to a stop, 
perplexed, curious. With uncertain steps, and evidently 
wondering why he did so, he came to the door of the 
room and opened it, looking out into the night. Van- 
amee, hidden in the deep shadow of the archway, did not 
move, but his eyes closed, and the intense expression 
deepened on his face. The priest hesitated, moved for- 
ward a step, turned back, paused again, then came 
straight across the garden patch, brusquely colliding 
with Vanamee, still motionless in the recess of the arch- 
way. 

Sarria gave a great start, catching his breath. 

Oh — oh, it's you. Was it you I heard calling? No, 
I could not have heard — I remember now. What a 
strange power ! I am not sure that it is right to do this 
thing, Vanamee. I — I had to come. I do not know why. 
It is a great force — a power — I don’t like it. Vanamee, 
sometimes it frightens me.” 

Vanamee put his chin in the air. 

** If I had wanted to, sir, I could have made you come 
to me from back there in the Quien Sabe ranch.” 

The priest shook his head. 

It troubles me,” he said, '' to think that my own will 


139 


A Story of California 

can count for so little. Just now I could not resist. If a 
deep river had been between us, I must have crossed it. 
Suppose I had been asleep now ? ” 

“ It would have been all the easier,^’ answered Van- 
amee. I understand as little of these things as you. But 
I think if you had been asleep, your power of resistance 
would have been so much the more weakened.^^ 

“ Perhaps I should not have waked. Perhaps I should 
have come to you in my sleep.” 

“ Perhaps.” 

Sarria crossed himself. ** It is occult,” he hazarded. 

No ; I do not like it. Dear fellow,” he put his hand 
on Vanamee’s shoulder, “don’t — call me that way again; 
promise. See,” he held out his hand, “ I am all of a 
tremble. There, we won’t speak of it further. Wait 
for me a moment. I have only to put the cross in its 
place, and a fresh altar cloth, and then I am done. To- 
morrow is the feast of The Holy Cross, and I am prepar- 
ing against it. The night is fine. We will smoke a cigar 
in the cloister garden.” 

A few moments later the two passed out of the door on 
the other side of the church, opposite the pulpit, Sarria 
adjusting a silk skull cap on his tonsured head. He wore 
his cassock now, and was far more the churchman in ap- 
pearance than when Vanamee and Presley had seen him 
on a former occasion. 

They w^ere now in the cloister garden. The place was 
charming. Everywhere grew clumps of palms and mag- 
nolia trees. A grapevine, over a century old, occupied a 
trellis in one angle of the walls which surrounded the 
garden on two sides. Along the third side was the 
church itself, while the fourth was open, the wall having 
crumbled away, its site marked only by a line of eight 
great pear trees, older even than the grapevine, 
gnarled, twisted, bearing no fruit. Directly opposite 


140 The Octopus 

the pear trees, in the south wall of the garden, was a 
round, arched portal, whose gate giving upon the espla- 
nade in front of the Mission was always closed. Small 
gravelled walks, well kept, bordered with mignonette, 
twisted about among the flower beds, and underneath 
the magnolia trees. In the centre was a little fountain 
in a stone basin green with moss, while just beyond, 
between the fountain and the pear trees, stood what was 
left of a sun dial, the bronze gnomon, green with the 
beatings of the weather, the figures on the half-circle 
of the dial worn away, illegible. 

But on the other side of the fountain, and directly op- 
posite the door of the Mission, ranged against the wall, 
were nine graves — three with headstones, the rest with 
slabs. Two of Sarria's predecessors were buried here; 
three of the graves were those of Mission Indians. One 
was thought to contain a former alcalde of Guadalajara ; 
two more held the bodies of De La Cuesta and his young 
wife (taking with her to the grave the illusion of her 
husband’s love), and the last one, the ninth, at the end of 
the line, nearest the pear trees, was marked by a little 
headstone, the smallest of any, on which, together with 
the proper dates — only sixteen years apart — was cut the 
name “ Angele Varian.” 

But the quiet, the repose, the isolation of the little 
cloister garden was infinitely delicious. It was a tiny 
corner of the great valley that stretched in all directions 
around it — shut off, discreet, romantic, a garden of 
dreams, of enchantments, of illusions. Outside there, 
far off, the great grim world went clashing through its 
grooves, but in here never an echo of the grinding of its 
wheels entered to jar upon the subdued modulation of 
the fountain’s uninterrupted murmur. 

Sarria and Vanamee found their way to a stone bench 
against the side wall of the Mission, near the door from 


A Story of California 14 1 

which they had just issued, and sat down, Sarria light- 
ing a cigar, Vanamee rolling and smoking cigarettes in 
Mexican fashion. 

All about them widened the vast calm night. All the 
stars were out. The moon was coming up. There was 
no wind, no sound. The insistent flowing of the fountain 
seemed only as the symbol of the passing of time, a 
thing that was understood rather than heard, inevitable, 
prolonged. At long intervals, a faint breeze, hardly 
more than a breath, found its way into the garden over 
the enclosing walls, and passed overhead, spreading 
everywhere the delicious, mingled perfume of magnolia 
blossoms, of mignonette, of moss, of grass, and all the 
calm green life silently teeming within the enclosure of 
the walls. 

From where he sat, Vanamee, turning his head, could 
look out underneath the pear trees to the north. Close 
at hand, a little valley lay between the high ground on 
which the Mission was built, and the line of low hills just 
beyond Broderson Creek on the Quien Sabe. In here 
was the Seed ranch, which Angele’s people had culti- 
vated, a unique and beautiful stretch of five hundred 
acres, planted thick with roses, violets, lilies, tulips, iris, 
carnations, tube-roses, poppies, heliotrope — all manner 
and description of flowers, five hundred acres of them, 
solid, thick, exuberant; blooming and fading, and leav- 
ing their seed or slips to be marketed broadcast all over 
the United States. This had been the vocation of 
Angele’s parents — raising flowers for their seeds. All 
over the country the Seed ranch was known. Now it 
was arid, almost dry, but when in full flower, toward the 
middle of summer, the sight of these half-thousand acres 
royal with colour — ^vermilion, azure, flaming yellow— 
was a marvel. When an east wind blew, men on the 
streets of Bonneville, nearly twelve miles away, could 


142 The Octopus 

catch the scent of this valley of flowers, this chaos of 
perfume. 

And into this life of flowers, this world of colour, this 
atmosphere oppressive and clogged and cloyed and thick- 
ened with sweet odour, Angele had been born. There 
she had lived her sixteen years. There she had died. It 
was not surprising that Vanamee, with his intense, deli- 
cate sensitiveness to beauty, his almost abnormal ca- 
pacity for great happiness, had been drawn to her, had 
loved her so deeply. 

She came to him from out of the flowers, the smell of 
the roses in her hair of gold, that hung in two straight 
plaits on either side of her face; the reflection of the vio- 
lets in the profound dark blue of her eyes, perplexing, 
heavy-lidded, almond-shaped, oriental; the aroma and 
the imperial red of the carnations In her lips, with their 
almost Egyptian fulness; the whiteness of the lilies, the 
perfume of the lilies, and the lilies’ slender balancing 
grace in her neck. Her hands disengaged the odour of 
the heliotropes. The folds of her dress gave off the 
enervating scent of poppies. Her feet were redolent of 
hyacinths. 

For a long time after sitting down upon the bench, 
neither the priest nor Vanamee spoke. But after a 
while Sarria took his cigar from his lips, saying: 

How still it is ! This is a beautiful old garden, peace- 
ful, very quiet. Some day I shall be buried here. I like 
to remember that; and you, too, Vanamee.” 

** Quien sabef ** 

Yes, you, too. Where else? No, it is better here, 
yonder, by the side of the litle girl.” 

“ I am not able to look forward yet, sir. The things 
that are to be are somehow nothing to me at all. Fo': 
me they amount to nothing.” 

They amount to everything, my boy.” 


Hi 


A Story of California 

" Yes, to one part of me, but not to the part of me that 
belonged to Angele — the best part. Oh, you don’t 
know,” he exclaimed with a sudden movement, ** no one 
can understand. What is it to me when you tell me that 
sometime after I shall die too, somewhere, in a vague 
place you call Heaven, I shall see her again? Do you 
think that the idea of that ever made any one’s sorrow 
easier to bear? Ever took the edge from any one’s 
grief ? ” 

“ But you believe that ” 

Oh, believe, believe ! ” echoed the other. ** What do 
I believe? I don’t know. I believe, or I don’t believe. 
I can remember what she was, but I cannot hope what 
she will be. Hope, after all, is only memory seen re- 
versed. When I try to see her in another life — ^whatever 
you call it — in Heaven — beyond the grave — this vague 
place of yours ; when I try to see her there, she comes 
to my imagination only as what she was, material, 
earthly, as I loved her. Imperfect, you say ; but that is 
as I saw her, and as I saw her, I loved her ; and as she 
was, material, earthly, imperfect, she loved me. It’s 
that, that I want,” he exclaimed. I don’t want her 
changed. I don’t want her spiritualised, exalted, glori- 
fied, celestial. I want her, I think it is only this feeling 
that has kept me from killing myself. I would rather be 
unhappy in the memory of what she actually was, than 
be happy in the realisation of her transformed, changed, 
made celestial. I am only human. Her soul! That was 
beautiful, no doubt. But, again, it was something very 
vague, intangible, hardly more than a phrase. But the 
touch of her hand was real, the sound of her voice was 
real, the clasp of her arms about my neck was real. 
Oh,” he cried, shaken with a sudden wrench of passion, 
give those back to me. Tell your God to give those 
back to me — the sound of her voice, the touch of her 


144 


The Octopus 

hand, the clasp of her dear arms, real, real, and then you 
may talk to me of Heaven.’' 

Sarria shook his head. '' But when you meet her 
again,” he observed, “ in Heaven, you, too, will be 
changed. You will see her spiritualised, with spiritual 
eyes. As she is now, she does not appeal to you. I un- 
derstand that. It is because, as you say, you are only 
human, while she is divine. But when you come to be 
like her, as she is now, you will know her as she really 
is, not as she seemed to be, because her voice was sweet, 
because her hair was pretty, because her hand was warm 
in yours. Vanamee, your talk is that of a foolish child. 
You are like one of the Corinthians to whom Paul wrote. 
Do you remember ? Listen now. I can recall the words, 
and such words, beautiful and terrible at the same time, 
such a majesty. They march like soldiers with trumpets. 
‘ But some man will say ’ — as you have said just now — • 
* How are the dead raised up ? And with what body do 
they come ? Thou fool ! That which thou sowest is not 
quickened except it die, and that which thou sowest, 
thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain. 
It may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. But 
God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every 
seed his own body. . . . It is sown a natural body ; 
it is raised a spiritual body.* It is because you are a 
natural body that you cannot understand her, nor wish 
for her as a spiritual body, but when you are both spir- 
itual, then you shall know each other as you are — know 
as you never knew before. Your grain of wheat is your 
symbol of immortality. You bury it in the earth. It 
dies, and rises again a thousand times more beautiful. 
Vanamee, your dear girl was only a grain of humanity 
that we have buried here, and the end is not yet. But 
all this is so old, so old. The world learned it a thousand 
years ago, and yet each man that has ever stood by the 


A Story of California 145 

open grave of any one he loved must learn it all over 
again from the beginning.” 

Vanamee was silent for a moment, looking off with 
unseeing eyes between the trunks of the pear trees, over 
the little valley. 

That may all be as you say,” he answered after a 
while. I have not learned it yet, in any case. Now, I 
only know that I love her — oh, as if it all were yester- 
day — and that I am suffering, suffering, always.” 

He leaned forward, his head supported on his 
clenched fists, the infinite sadness of his face deepening 
like a shadow, the tears brimming in his deep-set eyes. 
A question that he must ask, which involved the thing 
that was scarcely to be thought of, occurred to him at 
this moment. After hesitating for a long moment, he 
said : 

“ I have been away a long time, and I have had no 
news of this place since I left. Is there anything to tell. 
Father? Has any discovery been made, any suspicion 
developed, as to — ^the Other ? ” 

The priest shook his head. 

‘‘Not a word, not a whisper. It is a mystery. It 
always will be.” 

Vanamee clasped his head between his clenched fists, 
rocking himself to and fro. 

“ Oh, the terror of it,” he murmured. “ The horror 
of it. And she — think of it, Sarria, only sixteen, a little 
girl; so innocent, that she never knew what wrong 
meant, pure as a little child is pure, who believed that all 
things were good ; mature only in her love. And to be 
struck down like that, while your God looked down from 
Heaven and v/ould not take her part.” All at once he 
seemed to lose control of himself. One of those furies 
of impotent grief and wrath that assailed him from time 
to time, blind, insensate; incoherent, suddenly took pos- 


146 


The Octopus 

session of him. A torrent of words issued from his 
lips, and he flung out an arm, the fist clenched, in a fierce, 
quick gesture, partly of despair, partly of defiance, partly 
of supplication. 

“ No, your God would not take her part. Where was 
God’s mercy in that? Where was Heaven’s protection 
in that? Where was the loving kindness you preach 
about? Why did God give her life if it was to be 
stamped out ? Why did God give her the power of love 
if it was to come to nothing? Sarria, listen to me. Why 
did God make her so divinely pure if He permitted that 
abomination ? Ha ! ” he exclaimed bitterly, your God ! 
Why, an Apache buck would have been more merciful. 
Your God! There is no God. There is only the Devil. 
The Heaven you pray to is only a joke, a wretched trick, 
a delusion. It is only Hell that is real.” 

Sarria caught him by the arm. 

“ You are a fool and a child,” he exclaimed, “ and it is 
blasphemy that you are saying. I forbid it. You under- 
stand ? I forbid it.” 

Vanamee turned on him with a sudden cry. 

“ Then, tell your God to give her back to me 1 ” 

Sarria started away from him, his eyes widening in 
astonishment, surprised out of all composure by the 
other’s outburst. Vanamee’s swarthy face was pale, 
the sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes were marked with 
great black shadows. The priest no longer recognised 
him. The face, that face of the ascetic, lean, framed in 
its long black hair and pointed beard, was quivering with 
the excitement of hallucination. It was the face of the 
inspired shepherds of the Hebraic legends, living close 
to nature, the younger prophets of Israel, dwellers in the 
wilderness, solitary, imaginative, believing in the 
Vision, having strange delusions, gifted wth strange 
powers. In a brief second of thought, Sarria under- 


A Story of California 147 

stood. Out into the wilderness, the vast arid desert 
of the Southwest, Vanamee had carried his grief. For 
days, for weeks, months even, he had been alone, a soli- 
tary speck lost in the immensity of the horizons; con- 
tinually he was brooding, haunted with his sorrow, 
thinking, thinking, often hard put to it for food. The 
body was ill-nourished, and the mind, concentrated for- 
ever upon one subject, had recoiled upon itself, had 
preyed upon the naturally nervous temperament, till the 
imagination had become exalted, morbidly active, dis- 
eased, beset with hallucinations, forever in search of the 
manifestation, of the miracle. It was small wonder that, 
bringing a fancy so distorted back to the scene of a van- 
ished happiness, Vanamee should be racked with the 
most violent illusions, beset in the throes of a veritable 
hysteria. 

Tell your God to give her back to me,” he repeated 
with fierce insistence. 

It was the pitch of mysticism, the imagination har- 
assed and goaded beyond the normal round, suddenly 
flipping from the circumference, spinning off at a tan- 
gent, out into the void, where all things seemed possible, 
hurtling through the dark there, groping for the super- 
natural, clamouring for the miracle. And it was also the 
human, natural protest against the inevitable, the irre- 
vocable ; the spasm of revolt under the sting of death, 
the rebellion of the soul at the victory of the grave. 

“ He can give her back to me if He only will,” Van- 
amee cried. ** Sarria, you must help me. I tell you — I 
warn you, sir, I can't last much longer under it. My 
head is all wrong with it — Fve no more hold on my 
mind. Something must happen or I shall lose my senses, 
I am breaking down under it all, my body and my mind 
alike. Bring her to me ; make God show her to me. If 
all tales are true, it would not be the first time. If I 


148 The Octopus 

cannot have her, at least let me see her as she was, real, 
earthly, not her spirit, her ghost. I want her real self, 
undefiled again. If this is dementia, then let me be de- 
mented. But help me, you and your God ; create the de- 
lusion, do the miracle.’’ 

Stop ! ” cried the priest again, shaking him roughly 
by the shoulder. “ Stop. Be yourself. This is de- 
mentia; but I shall not let you be demented. Think of 
what you are saying. Bring her back to you ! Is that 
the way of God? I thought you were a man; this is the 
talk of a weak-minded girl.” 

Vanamee stirred abruptly in his place, drawing a long 
breath and looking about him vaguely, as if he came to 
himself. 

“ You are right,” he muttered. ** I hardly know what 
I am saying at times. But there are moments when my 
whole mind and soul seem to rise up in rebellion against 
what has happened; when it seems to me that I am 
stronger than death, and that if I only knew how to use 
the strength of my will, concentrate my power of 
thought — ^volition — that I could — I don’t know — not call 

her back — but — something ” 

diseased and distorted mind is capable of hal- 
lucinations, if that is what you mean,” observed Sarria. 

“ Perhaps that is what I mean. Perhaps I want only 
the delusion, after all.” 

Sarria did not reply, and there was a long silence. In 
the damp south corners of the walls a frog began to 
croak at exact intervals. The little fountain rippled 
monotonously, and a magnolia flower dropped from one 
of the trees, falling straight as a plummet through the 
motionless air, and settling upon the gravelled walk 
with a faint rustling sound. Otherwise the stillness was 
profound. 

A little later, the priest’s cigar, long since out, slipped 


A Story of California 149 

from his fingers to the ground. He began to nod gently. 
Vanamee touched his arm. 

“Asleep, sir?” 

The other started, rubbing his eyes. 

“ Upon my word, I believe I was.” 

“ Better go to bed, sir. I am not tired. I think I shall 
sit out here a little longer.” 

“ Well, perhaps I would be better off in bed. Your 
bed is always ready for you here whenever you want to 
use it.” 

“ No — I shall go back to Quien Sabe — Plater. Good- 
night, sir.” 

“ Good-night, my boy.” 

Vanamee was left alone. For a long time he sat 
motionless in his place, his elbows on his knees, his chin 
propped in his hands. The minutes passed — then the 
hours. The moon climbed steadily higher among the 
stars. Vanamee rolled and smoked cigarette after cigar- 
ette, the blue haze of smoke hanging motionless above 
his head, or drifting in slowly weaving filaments across 
the open spaces of the garden. 

But the influence of the old enclosure, this corner of 
romance and mystery, this isolated garden of dreams, 
savouring of the past, with its legends, its graves, its 
crumbling sun dial, its fountain with its rime of moss, 
was not to be resisted. Now that the priest had left him, 
the same exaltation of spirit that had seized upon Van- 
amee earlier in the evening, by degrees grew big again 
in his mind and imagination. His sorrow assaulted him 
like the flagellations of a fine whiplash, and his love for 
Angele rose again in his heart, it seemed to him never 
so deep, so tender, so infinitely strong. No doubt, it 
was his familiarity with the Mission garden, his clear-cut 
remembrance of it, as it was in the days when he had met 
Angele there, tallying now so exactly with the reality 


The Octopus 


150 

there under his eyes, that brought her to his imagination 
so vividly. As yet he dared not trust himself near her 
grave, but, for the moment, he rose and, his hands 
clasped behind him, walked slowly from point to point 
amid the tiny gravelled walks, recalling the incidents of 
eighteen years ago. On the bench he had quitted he and 
Angele had often sat. Here by the crumbling sun dial, 
he recalled the night when he had kissed her for the first 
time. Here, again, by the rim of the fountain, with its 
fringe of green, she once had paused, and, baring her 
arm to the shoulder, had thrust it deep into the water, 
and then withdrawing it, had given it to him to kiss, 
all wet and cool; and here, at last, under the shadow 
of the pear trees they had sat, evening after evening, 
looking off over the little valley below them, watch- 
ing the night build itself, dome-like, from horizon f-o 
zenith. 

Brusquely Vanamee turned away from the prospect. 
The Seed ranch was dark at this time of the year, and 
flowerless. Far off toward its centre, he had caught a 
brief glimpse of the house where Angele had lived, and a 
faint light burning in its window. But he turned from it 
sharply. The deep-seated travail of his grief abruptly 
reached the paroxysm. With long strides he crossed the 
garden and reentered the Mission church itself, plung- 
ing into the coolness of its atmosphere as into a bath. 
What he searched for he did not know, or, rather, did 
not define. He knew only that he was suffering, that a 
longing for Angele, for some object around which his 
great love could enfold itself, was tearing at his heart 
with iron teeth. He was ready to be deluded; craved the 
hallucination ; begged pitifully for the illusion ; anything 
rather than the empty, tenantless night, the voiceless 
silence, the vast loneliness of the overspanning arc of the 
heavens. 


A Story of California 15 1 

Before the chancel rail of the altar, under the sanc- 
tuary lamp, Vanamee sank upon his knees, his arms 
folded upon the rail, his head bowed down upon them. 
He prayed, with what words he could not say, for what 
he did not understand — for help, merely, for relief, for an 
Answer to his cry. 

It was upon that, at length, that his disordered mind 
concentrated itself, an Answer — he demanded, he im- 
plored an Answer. Not a vague visitation of Grace, not 
a formless sense of Peace; but an Answer, something 
real, even if the reality were fancied, a voice out of the 
night, responding to his, a hand in the dark clasping 
his groping fingers, a breath, human, warm, fragrant, 
familiar, like a soft, sweet caress on his shrunken 
cheeks. Alone there in the dim half-light of the de- 
caying Mission, with its crumbling plaster, its naive 
crudity of ornament and picture, he wrestled fiercely 
with his desires — ^words, fragments of sentences, 
inarticulate, incoherent, wrenched from his tight-shut 
teeth. 

But the Answer was not in the church. Above him, 
over the high altar, the Virgin in a glory, with downcast 
eyes and folded hands, grew vague and indistinct in the 
shadow, the colours fading, tarnished by centuries of 
incense smoke. The Christ in agony on the Cross was 
but a lamentable vision of tormented anatomy, grey 
flesh, spotted with crimson. The St. John, the San Juan 
Bautista, patron saint of the Mission, the gaunt figure 
in skins, two fingers upraised in the gesture of bene- 
diction, gazed stolidly out into the half-gloom under 
the ceiling, ignoring the human distress that beat it- 
self in vain against the altar rail below, and Angele re- 
mained as before — only a memory, far distant, in- 
tangible, lost. 

Vanamee rose, turning his back upon the altar with a 


152 


The Octopus 

vague gesture of despair. He crossed the church, and 
issuing from the low-arched door opposite the pulpit, 
once more stepped out into the garden. Here, at least, 
was reality. The warm, still air descended upon him like 
a cloak, grateful, comforting, dispelling the chill that 
lurked in the damp mould of plaster and crumbling 
adobe. 

But now he found his way across the garden on the 
other side of the fountain, where, ranged against the 
eastern wall, were nine graves. Here Angele was 
buried, in the smallest grave of them all, marked by the 
little headstone, with its two dates, only sixteen years 
apart. To this spot, at last, he had returned, after the 
years spent in the desert, the wilderness — after all the 
wanderings of the Long Trail. Here, if ever, he must 
have a sense of her nearness. Close at hand, a short 
four feet under that mound of grass, was the form he 
had so often held in the embrace of his arms ; the face, 
the very face he had kissed, that face with the hair of 
gold making three-cornered the round white forehead, 
the violet-blue eyes, heavy-lidded, with their strange 
oriental slant upward toward the temples; the sweet 
full lips, almost Egyptian in their fulness — all that 
strange, perplexing, wonderful beauty, so troublous, so 
enchanting, so out of all accepted standards. 

He bent down, dropping upon one knee, a hand upon 
the headstone, and read again the inscription. Then in- 
stinctively his hand left the stone and rested upon the 
low mound of turf, touching it with the softness of a 
caress; and then, before he was aware of it, he was 
stretched at full length upon the earth, beside the grave, 
his arms about the low mound, his lips pressed against 
the grass with which it was covered. The pent-up grief 
of nearly twenty years rose again within his heart, and 
overflowed, irresistible, violent, passionate. There was 


*53 


A Story of California 

no one to see, no one to hear. Vanamee had no thought 
of restraint. He no longer wrestled with his pain — 
strove against it. There was even a sense of relief in 
permitting himself to be overcome. But the reaction 
from this outburst was equally violent. His revolt 
against the inevitable, his protest against the grave, 
shook him from head to foot, goaded him beyond all 
bounds of reason, hounded him on and into the do- 
main of hysteria, dementia. Vanamee was no longer 
master of himself — no longer knew what he was doing. 

At first, he had been content with merely a wild, un- 
reasoned cry to Heaven that Angele should be restored 
to him, but the vast egotism that seems to run through 
all forms of disordered intelligence gave his fancy 
another turn. He forgot God. He no longer reckoned 
with Heaven. He arrogated their powers to himself — 
struggled to be, of his own unaided might, stronger than 
death, more powerful than the grave. He had demanded 
of Sarria that God should restore Angele to him, but 
now he appealed directly to Angele herself. As he lay 
there, his arms clasped about her grave, she seemed so 
near to him that he fancied she must hear. And sud- 
denly, at this moment, his recollection of his strange 
compelling power — the same power by which he had 
called Presley to him half-way across the Quien Sabe 
ranch, the same power which had brought Sarria to his 
side that very evening — recurred to him. Concentrat- 
ing his mind upon the one object with which it had so 
long been filled, Vanamee, his eyes closed, his face buried 
in his arms, exclaimed : 

'‘Come to me — ^Angele — don’t you hear? Come to 
me. 

But the Answer was not in the Grave. Below him the 
voiceless Earth lay silent, moveless, withholding the 
secret, jealous of that which it held so close in its grip. 


154 Octopus 

refusing to give up that which had been confided to its 
keeping, untouched by the human anguish that above 
there, on its surface, clutched with despairing hands at a 
grave long made. The Earth that only that morning 
had been so eager, so responsive to the lightest sum- 
mons, so vibrant with Life, now at night, holding death 
within its embrace, guarding inviolate the secret of the 
Grave, was deaf to all entreaty, refused the Answer, and 
Angele remained as before, only a memory, far distant, 
intangible, lost. 

Vanamee lifted his head, looking about him with un- 
seeing eyes, trembling with the exertion of his vain ef- 
fort. But he could not as yet allow himself to despair. 
Never before had that curious power of attraction failed 
him. He felt himself to be so strong in this respect that 
he was persuaded if he exerted himself to the limit of his 
capacity, something — he could not say what — must 
come of it. If it was only a self-delusion, an hallucina- 
tion, he told himself that he would be content. 

Almost of its own accord, his distorted mind concen- 
trated itself again, every thought, all the power of his 
will riveting themselves upon Angele. As if she were 
alive, he summoned her to him. His eyes, fixed upon 
the name cut into the headstone, contracted, the pupils 
growing small, his fists shut tight, his nerves braced 
rigid. 

For a few seconds he stood thus, breathless, expectant, 
awaiting the manifestation, the Miracle. Then, without 
knowing why, hardly conscious of what was transpiring, 
he found that his glance was leaving the headstone, was 
turning from the grave. Not only this, but his whole 
body was following the direction of his eyes. Before 
he knew it, he was standing with his back to Angdle’s 
grave, was facing the north, facing the line of pear trees 
and the little valley where the Seed ranch lay. At first. 


155 


A Story of California 

he thought this was because he had allowed his will to 
weaken, the concentrated power of his mind to grow 
slack. And once more turning toward the grave, he 
banded all his thoughts together in a consummate effort, 
his teeth grinding together, his hands pressed to his fore- 
head. He forced himself to the notion that Angele was 
alive, and to this creature of his imagination he addressed 
himself: 

Angele ! ” he cried in a low voice ; ** Angele, I am 
calling you — do you hear? Come to me — come to me 
now, now.^^ 

Instead of the Answer he demanded, that inexplicable 
counter-influence cut across the current of his thought. 
Strive as he would against it, he must veer to the north, 
toward the pear trees. Obeying it, he turned, and, still 
wondering, took a step in that direction, then another 
and another. The next moment he came abruptly to 
himself, in the black shadow of the pear trees them- 
selves, and, opening his eyes, found himself looking off 
over the Seed ranch, toward the little house in the 
centre where Angele had once lived. 

Perplexed, he returned to the grave, once more calling 
upon the resources of his will, and abruptly, so soon as 
these reached a certain point, the same cross-current 
set in. He could no longer keep his eyes upon the 
headstone, could no longer think of the grave and what 
it held. He must face the north; he must be drawn to- 
ward the pear trees, and there left standing in their 
shadow, looking out aimlessly over the Seed ranch, 
wondering, bewildered. Farther than this the influence 
never drew him, but up to this point — the line of pear 
trees — it was not to be resisted. 

For a time the peculiarity of the affair was of more 
interest to Vanamee than even his own distress of spirit, 
and once or twice he repeated the attempt, almost experi- 


156 The Octopus 

mentally, and invariably with the same result : so soom 
as he seemed to hold Angele in the grip of his mind, he 
was moved to turn about toward the north, and hurry 
toward the pear trees on the crest of the hill that over- 
looked the little valley. 

But Vanamee’s unhappiness was too keen this night 
for him to dwell long upon the vagaries of his mind. 
Submitting at length, and abandoning the grave, he flung 
himself down in the black shade of the pear trees, his chin 
in his hands, and resigned himself finally and definitely 
to the inrush of recollection and the exquisite grief of an 
infinite regret. 

To his fancy, she came to him again. He put himself 
back many years. He remembered the warm nights 
of July and August, profoundly still, the sky encrusted 
with stars, the little Mission garden exhaling the mingled 
perfumes that all through the scorching day had been 
distilled under the steady blaze of a summer’s sun. He 
saw himself as another person, arriving at this, their 
rendezvous. All day long she had been in his mind. All 
day long he had looked forward to this quiet hour that 
belonged to her. It was dark. He could see nothing, 
but, by and by, he heard a step, a gentle rustle of the 
grass on the slope of the hill pressed under an advancing 
foot. Then he saw the faint gleam of pallid gold of her 
hair, a barely visible glow in the starlight, and heard the 
murmur of her breath in the lapse of the over-passing 
breeze. And then, in the midst of the gentle perfumes 
of the garden, the perfumes of the magnolia flowers, of 
the mignonette borders, of the crumbling walls, there 
expanded a new odour, or the faint mingling of many 
odours, the smell of the roses that lingered in her hair, of 
the lilies that exhaled from her neck, of the heliotrope 
that disengaged itself from her hands and arms, and of 
the hyacinths with which her little feet were redolent. 


157 


A Story of California 

And then, suddenly, it was herself — her eyes, heavy- 
lidded, violet blue, full of the love of him; her sweet 
full lips speaking his name; her hands clasping his hands, 
his shoulders, his neck — her whole dear body giving it- 
self into his embrace; her lips against his; her hands 
holding his head, drawing his face down to hers. 

Vanamee, as he remembered all this, flung out an arm 
with a cry of pain, his eyes searching the gloom, all his 
mind in strenuous mutiny against the triumph of Death. 
His glance shot swiftly out across the night, uncon- 
sciously following the direction from which Angele used 
to come to him. 

Come to me now,’^ he exclaimed under his breath, 
tense and rigid with the vast futile effort of his will. 

Come to me now, now. Don’t you hear me, Angele ? 
You must, you must come.” 

Suddenly Vanamee returned to himself with the 
abruptness of a blow. His eyes opened. He half raised 
himself from the ground. Swiftly his scattered wits re- 
adjusted themselves. Never more sane, never more 
himself, he rose to his feet and stood looking off into 
the night across the Seed ranch. 

What was it? ” he murmured, bewildered. 

He looked around him from side to side, as if to get 
in touch with reality once more. He looked at his hands, 
at the rough bark of the pear tree next which he stood, 
at the streaked and rain-eroded walls of the Mission and 
garden. The exaltation of his mind calmed itself; the 
unnatural strain under which he laboured slackened. 
He became thoroughly master of himself again, matter- 
of-fact, practical, keen. 

But just so sure as his hands were his own, just so sure 
as the bark of the pear tree was rough, the mouldering 
adobe of the Mission walls damp — ^just so sure had Some- 
thing occurred. It was vague, intangible, appealing only 


158 The Octopus 

to some strange, nameless sixth sense, but none the less 
perceptible. His mind, his imagination, sent out from 
him across the night, across the little valley below him, 
speeding hither and thither through the dark, lost, con- 
fused, had suddenly paused, hovering, had found Some- 
thing. It had not returned to him empty-handed. It 
had come back, but now there was a change — myste- 
rious, illusive. There were no words for this that had 
transpired. But for the moment, one thing only was 
certain. The night was no longer voiceless, the dark was 
no longer empty. Far off there, beyond the reach of 
vision, unlocalised, strange, a ripple had formed on the 
still black pool of the night, had formed, flashed one in- 
stant to the stars, then swiftly faded again. The night 
shut down once more. There was no sound — nothing 
stirred. 

For the moment, Vanamee stood transfixed, struck 
rigid in his place, stupefied, his eyes staring, breathless 
with utter amazement. Then, step by step, he shrank 
back into the deeper shadow, treading with the infinite 
precaution of a prowling leopard. A qualm of something 
very much like fear seized upon him. But immediately 
on the heels of this first impression came the doubt of 
his own senses. Whatever had happened had been so 
ephemeral, so faint, so intangible, that now he wondered 
if he had not deceived himself, after all. But the reac- 
tion followed. Surely, there had been Something. And 
from that moment began for him the most poignant un- 
certainty of mind. Gradually he drew back into the 
garden, holding his breath, listening to every faintest 
sound, walking upon tiptoe. He reached the fountain, 
and wetting his hands, passed them across his forehead 
and eyes. Once more he stood listening. The silence 
was profound. 

Troubled, disturbed, Vanamee went away, passing out 


159 


A Story of California 

of the garden, descending the hill. He forded Broder- 
son Creek where it intersected the road to Guadalajara, 
and went on across Quien Sabe, walking slowly, his head 
bent down, his hands clasped behind his back, thoughtful, 
perplexed. 


V 


At seven o’clock, in the bedroom of his ranch house, 
in the white-painted iron bedstead with its blue-grey 
army blankets and red counterpane, Annixter was still 
asleep, his face red, his mouth open, his stiff yellow hair 
in wild disorder. On the wooden chair at the bed-head, 
stood the kerosene lamp, by the light of which he had 
been reading the previous evening. Beside it was a 
paper bag of dried prunes, and the limp volume of Cop- 
perfield,’’ the place marked by a slip of paper torn from 
the edge of the bag. 

Annixter slept soundly, making great work of the busi- 
ness, unable to take even his rest gracefully. His eyes 
were shut so tight that the skin at their angles was 
drawn into puckers. Under his pillow, his two hands 
were doubled up into fists. At intervals, he gritted his 
teeth ferociously, while, from time to time, the abrupt 
sound of his snoring dominated the brisk ticking of the 
alarm clock that hung from the brass knob of the bed- 
post, within six inches of his ear. 

But immediately after seven, this clock sprung its 
alarm with the abruptness of an explosion, and within 
the second, Annixter had hurled the bed-clothes from 
him and flung himself up to a sitting posture on the edge 
of the bed, panting and gasping, blinking at the light, 
rubbing his head, dazed and bewildered, stupefied at the 
hideous suddenness with which he had been wrenched 
from his sleep. 


A Story of California l6i 

His first act was to take down the alarm clock and 
stifle its prolonged whirring under the pillows and 
blankets. But when this had been done, he continued to 
sit stupidly on the edge of the bed, curling his toes away 
from the cold of the floor ; his half-shut eyes, heavy with 
sleep, fixed and vacant, closing and opening by turns. 
For upwards of three minutes he alternately dozed and 
woke, his head and the whole upper half of his body sag- 
ging abruptly sideways from moment to moment. But 
at length, coming more to himself, he straightened up, 
ran his fingers through his hair, and with a prodigious 
yawn, murmured vaguely: 

“Oh, Lord! Oh-h, Lord 

He stretched three or four times, twisting about in his 
place, curling and uncurling his toes, muttering from 
time to time between two yawns: 

“Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!” 

He stared about the room, collecting his thoughts, re- 
adjusting himself for the day’s work. 

The room was barren, the walls of tongue-and-groove 
sheathing — alternate brown and yellow boards — like the 
walls of a stable, were adorned with two or three un- 
framed lithographs, the Christmas “ souvenirs ” of 
weekly periodicals, fastened with great wire nails; a 
bunch of herbs or flowers, lamentably withered and grey 
with dust, was affixed to the mirror over the black walnut 
washstand by the window, and a yellowed photograph of 
Annixter’s combined harvester — himself and his men in 
a group before it — hung close at hand. On the floor, at 
the bedside and before the bureau, were two oval rag- 
carpet rugs. In the corners of the room were muddy 
boots, a McClellan saddle, a surveyor’s transit, an empty 
coal-hod and a box of iron bolts and nuts. On the wall 
over the bed, in a gilt frame, was Annixter’s college di- 
ploma, while on the bureau, amid a litter of hair-brushes. 


i 62 


The Octopus 

dirty collars, driving gloves, cigars and the like, stood a 
broken machine for loading shells. 

It was essentially a man’s room, rugged, uncouth, 
virile, full of the odours of tobacco, of leather, of rusty 
iron; the bare floor hollowed by the grind of hob-nailed 
boots, the walls marred by the friction of heavy things of 
metal. Strangely enough, Annixter’s clothes were dis- 
posed of on the single chair with the precision of an old 
maid. Thus he had placed them the night before; the 
boots set carefully side by side, the trousers, with the 
overalls still upon them, neatly folded upon the seat of 
the chair, the coat hanging from its back. 

The Quien Sabe ranch house was a six-room affair, 
all on one floor. By no excess of charity could it have 
been called a home. Annixter was a wealthy man; he 
could have furnished his dwelling with quite as much 
elegance as that of Magnus Derrick. As it was, how- 
ever, he considered his house merely as a place to eat, 
to sleep, to change his clothes in ; as a shelter from the 
rain, an office where business was transacted — nothing 
more. 

When he was sufficiently awake, Annixter thrust his 
feet into a pair of wicker slippers, and shuffled across 
the office adjoining his bedroom, to the bathroom just 
beyond, and stood under the icy shower a few minutes, 
his teeth chattering, fulminating oaths at the coldness of 
the water. Still shivering, he hurried into his clothes, 
and, having pushed the button of the electric bell to 
announce that he was ready for breakfast, immediately 
plunged into the business of the day. While he was thus 
occupied, the butcher’s cart from Bonneville drove into 
the yard with the day’s supply of meat. This cart also 
brought the Bonneville paper and the mail of the pre- 
vious night. In the bundle of correspondence that the 
butcher handed to Annixter that morning, was a tele- 


A Story of California 163 

gram from Osterman, at that time on his second trip to 
Los Angeles. It read: 

“ Flotation of company in this district assured. Have secured 
services of desirable party. Am now in position to sell you 
your share stock, as per original plan,’* 

Annixter grunted as he tore the despatch into strips. 

“ Well/' he muttered, “ that part is settled, then." 

He made a little pile of the torn strips on the top of the 
unlighted stove, and burned them, carefully, scowling 
down into the flicker of fire, thoughtful and preoccupied. 

He knew very well what Osterman referred to by 

Flotation of company," and also who was the desir- 
able party ” he spoke of. 

Under protest, as he was particular to declare, and 
after interminable argument, Annixter had allowed him- 
self to be reconciled with Osterman, and to be persuaded 
to reenter the proposed political deal." A committee 
had been formed to finance the affair — Osterman, old 
Broderson, Annixter himself, and, with reservations, 
hardly more than a looker-on, Harran Derrick. Of this 
committee, Osterman was considered chairman. Mag- 
nus Derrick had formally and definitely refused his ad- 
herence to the scheme. He was trying to steer a middle 
course. His position was difficult, anomalous. If freight 
rates were cut through the efforts of the members of the 
committee, he could not very well avoid taking advan- 
tage of the new schedule. He would be the gainer, 
though sharing neither the risk nor the expense. But, 
meanwhile, the days were passing; the primary elections 
were drawing nearer. The committee could not afford to 
wait, and by way of a beginning, Osterman had gone to 
Los Angeles, fortified by a large sum of money — a purse 
to which Annixter, Broderson and himself had con- 
tributed. He had put himself in touch with Disbrow, 


164 


The Octopus 

the political man of the Denver, Pueblo and Mojave road, 
and had had two interviews with him. The telegram that 
Annixter received that morning was to say that Disbrow 
had been bought over, and would adopt Darrell as the 
D., P. and M. candidate for Railroad Commissioner from 
the third district. 

One of the cooks brought up Annixter’s breakfast 
that morning, and he went through it hastily, reading his 
mail at the same time and glancing over the pages of the 

Mercury,’' Genslinger’s paper. The '' Mercury,” An- 
nixter was persuaded, received a subsidy from the Pacific 
and Southwestern Railroad, and was hardly better than 
the mouthpiece by which Shelgrim and the General Of- 
fice spoke to ranchers about Bonneville. 

An editorial in that morning’s issue said: 

** It would not be surprising to the well-informed, if the 
long-deferred re-grade of the value of the railroad sec- 
tions included in the Los Muertos, Quien Sabe, Oster- 
man and Broderson properties was made before the 
first of the year. Naturally, the tenants of these lands 
feel an interest in the price which the railroad will put 
upon its holdings, and it is rumoured they expect the land 
will be offered to them for two dollars and fifty cents per 
acre. It needs no seventh daughter of a seventh daugh- 
ter to foresee that these gentlemen will be disappointed.” 

“ Rot! ” vociferated Annixter to himself as he finished. 
He rolled the paper into a wad and hurled it from him. 

** Rot ! rot 1 What does Genslinger know about it ? I 
stand on my agreement with the P. and S. W. — from two 
fifty to five dollars an acre — there it is in black and white. 
The road is obligated. And my improvements I I made 
the land valuable by improving it, irrigating it, draining 
it, and cultivating it. Talk to me. I know better.” 

The most abiding impression that Genslinger’s edi- 
torial made upon him was, that possibly the ‘‘ Mercury ** 


A Story of California 165 

was not subsidised by the corporation after all. If it was, 
Genslinger would not have been led into making his mis- 
take as to the value of the land. He would have known 
that the railroad was under contract to sell at two dollars 
and a half an acre, and not only this, but that when the 
land was put upon the market, it was to be offered to 
the present holders first of all. Annixter called to 
mind the explicit terms of the agreement between him- 
self and the railroad, and dismissed the matter from his 
mind. He lit a cigar, put on his hat and went out. 

The morning was fine, the air nimble, brisk. On the 
summit of the skeleton-like tower of the artesian well, 
the windmill was turning steadily in a breeze from the 
southwest. The water in the irrigating ditch was well 
up. There was no cloud in the sky. Far off to the east 
and west, the bulwarks of the valley, the Coast Range 
and the foothills of the Sierras stood out, pale amethyst 
against the delicate pink and white sheen of the horizon. 
The sunlight was a veritable flood, crystal, limpid, spark- 
ling, setting a feeling of gayety in the air, stirring up an 
effervescence in the blood, a tumult of exuberance in the 
veins. 

But on his way to the barns, Annixter was obliged to 
pass by the open door of the dairy-house. Hilma Tree 
was inside, singing at her work; her voice of a velvety 
huskiness, more of the chest than of the throat, mingling 
with the liquid dashing of the milk in the vats and churns, 
and the clear, sonorous clinking of the cans and pans. 
Annixter turned into the dairy-house, pausing on the 
threshold, looking about him. Hilma stood bathed from 
head to foot in the torrent of sunlight that poured in 
upon her from the three wide-open windows. She was 
charming, delicious, radiant of youth, of health, of well- 
being. Into her eyes, wide open, brown, rimmed with 
their fine, thin line of intense black lashes, the sun set a 


1 66 The Octopus 

diamond flash; the same golden light glowed all around 
her thick, moist hair, lambent, beautiful, a sheen of al- 
most metallic lustre, and reflected itself upon her wet 
lips, moving with the words of her singing. The white- 
ness of her skin under the caress of this hale, vigorous 
morning light was dazzling, pure, of a fineness beyond 
words. Beneath the sweet modulation of her chin, the 
reflected light from the burnished copper vessel she was 
carrying set a vibration of pale gold. Overlaying the 
flush of rose in her cheeks, seen only when she stood 
against the sunlight, was a faint sheen of down, a lustrous 
floss, delicate as the pollen of a flower, or the impalpable 
powder of a moth’s wing. She was moving to and fro 
about her work, alert, joyous, robust; and from all the 
fine, full amplitude of her figure, from her thick white 
neck, sloping downward to her shoulders, from the deep, 
feminine swell of her breast, the vigorous maturity of 
her hips, there was disengaged a vibrant note of gayety, 
of exuberant animal life, sane, honest, strong. She wore 
a skirt of plain blue calico and a shirtwaist of pink linen, 
clean, trim; while her sleeves turned back to her shoul- 
ders, showed her large, white arms, wet with milk, re- 
dolent and. fragrant with milk, glowing and resplendent 
in the early morning light. 

On the threshold, Annixter took off his hat. 

“ Good morning. Miss Hilma.” 

Hilma, who had set down the copper can on top of the 
vat, turned about quickly. 

“Oh, good morning, sir;” and, unconsciously, she 
made a little gesture of salutation with her hand, raising 
it part way toward her head, as a man would have done. 

“ Well,” began Annixter vaguely, “ how are you get- 
ting along down here? ” 

“ Oh, very fine. To-day, there is not so much to do. 
We drew the whey hours ago, and now we are just done 


167 


A Story of California 

putting the curd to press. I have been cleaning. See my 
pans. Wouldn’t they do for mirrors, sir? And the cop- 
per things. I have scrubbed and scrubbed. Oh, you 
can look into the tiniest corners, everywhere, you won’t 
find so much as the littlest speck of dirt or grease. I 
love clean things, and this room is my own particu- 
lar place. Here I can do just as I please, and that is, 
to keep the cement floor, and the vats, and the churns 
and the separators, and especially the cans and coppers, 
clean; clean, and to see that the milk is pure, oh, so that a 
little baby could drink it; and to have the air always 
sweet, and the sun — oh, lots and lots of sun, morning, 
noon and afternoon, so that everything shines. You 
know, I never see the sun set that it don’t make me a 
little sad; yes, always, just a little. Isn’t it funny? I 
should want it to be day all the time. And when the day 
is gloomy and dark, I am just as sad as if a very good 
friend of mine had left me. Would you believe it? Just 
until within a few years, when I was a big girl, sixteen 
and over, mamma had to sit by my bed every night before 
I could go to sleep. I was afraid in the dark. Sometimes 
I am now. Just imagine, and now I am nineteen — a 
young lady.” 

“ You were, hey? ” observed Annixter, for the sake of 
saying something. Afraid in the dark ? What of — 
ghosts ? ” 

“ N-no; I don’t know what. I wanted the light, I 

wanted ” She drew a deep breath, turning towards 

the window and spreading her pink finger-tips to the 
• light. “ Oh, the sun. I love the sun. See, put your 
hand there — here on the top of the vat — like that. Isn’t 
it warm? Isn’t it fine? And don’t you love to see it 
coming in like that through the windows, floods of it; 
and all the little dust in it shining? Where there is lots 
of sunlight, I think the people must be very good. It’s* 


1 68 The Octopus 

only wicked people that love the dark. And the wicked 
things are always done and planned in the dark, I think. 
Perhaps, too, that’s why I hate things that are myste- 
rious — things that I can’t see, that happen in the dark.*' 
She wrinkled her nose with a little expression of aver- 
sion. I hate a mystery. Maybe that’s why I am afraid 
in the dark — or was. I shouldn’t like to think that any- 
thing could happen around me that I couldn’t see or un- 
derstand or explain.” 

She ran on from subject to subject, positively gar- 
rulous, talking in her low-pitched voice of velvety huski- 
ness for the mere enjoyment of putting her ideas into 
speech, innocently assuming that they were quite as 
interesting to others as to herself. She was yet a great 
child, ignoring the fact that she had ever grown up, tak- 
ing a child’s interest in her immediate surroundings, di- 
rect, straightforward, plain. While speaking, she con- 
tinued about her work, rinsing out the cans with a mix- 
ture of hot water and soda, scouring them bright, and 
piling them in the sunlight on top of the vat. 

Obliquely, and from between his narrowed lids, An- 
nixter scrutinised her from time to time, more and more 
won over by her adorable freshness, her clean, fine youth. 
The clumsiness that he usually experienced in the pres- 
ence of women was wearing off. Hilma Tree’s direct 
simplicity put him at his ease. He began to wonder if 
he dared to kiss Hilma, and if he did dare, how she 
would take it. A spark of suspicion flickered up in his 
mind. Did not her manner imply, vaguely, an invitation? 
One never could tell with feemales. That was why she 
was talking so much, no doubt, holding him there, af- 
fording the opportunity. Aha! She had best look out, 
or he would take her at her word. 

** Oh, I had forgotten,” suddenly exclaimed Hilma, 
** the very thing I wanted to show you — the new press* 


A Story of California 169 

You remember I asked for one last month? This is it. 
See, this is how it works. Here is where the curds go ; 
look. And this cover is screwed down like this, and then 
you work the lever this way.” She grasped the lever in 
both hands, throwing her weight upon it, her smooth, 
bare arm swelling round and firm with the effort, one 
slim foot, in its low shoe set off with the bright, steel 
buckle, braced against the wall. 

My, but that takes strength,” she panted, looking up 
at him and smiling. ‘‘But isn't it a fine press? Just 
what we needed.” 

“ And,” Annixter cleared his throat, “ and where do 
you keep the cheeses and the butter? ” He thought ii 
very likely that these were in the cellar of the dairy. 

“ In the cellar,” answered Hilma. “ Down here, see? ” 
She raised the flap of the cellar door at the end of the 
room. “ Would you like to see? Come down; I’ll show 
you.” 

She went before him down into the cool obscurity un- 
derneath, redolent of new cheese and fresh butter. An- 
nixter followed, a certain excitement beginning to gain 
upon him. He was almost sure now that Hilma wanted 
him to kiss her. At all events, one could but try. But, 
as yet, he was not absolutely sure. Suppose he had been 
mistaken in her; suppose she should consider herself in- 
sulted and freeze him with an icy stare. Annixter winced 
at the very thought of it. Better let the whole business 
go, and get to work. He was wasting half the morning. 
Yet, if she did want to give him the opportunity of 
kissing her, and he failed to take advantage of it, what a 
ninny she would think him; she would despise him for 
being afraid. He afraid! He, Annixter, afraid of a fool, 
feemale girl. Why, he owed it to himself as a man to go 
as far as he could. He told himself that that goat Oster- 
man would have kissed Hilma Tree weeks ago. To test 


1 70 The Octopus 

his state of mind, he imagined himself as having decided 
to kiss her, after all, and at once was surprised to experi- 
ence a poignant qualm of excitement, his heart beating 
heavily, his breath coming short. At the same time, his 
courage remained with him. He was not afraid to try. 
He felt a greater respect for himself because of this. His 
self-assurance hardened within him, and as Hilma turned 
to him, asking him to taste a cut from one of the ripe 
cheeses, he suddenly stepped close to her, throwing an 
arm about her shoulders, advancing his head. 

But at the last second, he bungled, hesitated; Hilma 
shrank from him, supple as a young reed; Annixter 
clutched harshly at her arm, and trod his full weight upon 
one of her slender feet, his cheek and chin barely touch- 
ing the delicate pink lobe of one of her ears, his lips 
brushing merely a fold of her shirt waist between neck 
and shoulder. The thing was a failure, and at once he 
realised that nothing had been further from Hilma’s 
mind than the idea of his kissing her. 

She started back from him abruptly, her hands ner- 
vously clasped against her breast, drawing in her breath 
sharply and holding it with a little, tremulous catch of 
the throat that sent a quivering vibration the length of 
her smooth, white neck. Her eyes opened wide with a 
childlike look, more of astonishment than anger. She 
was surprised, out of all measure, discountenanced, taken 
all aback, and when she found her breath, gave voice to a 
great “ Oh of dismay and distress. 

For an instant, Annixter stood awkwardly in his place, 
ridiculous, clumsy, murmuring over and over again: 

“ Well — well — that’s all right — ^who’s going to hurt 
you? You needn’t be afraid — who’s going to hurt you— « 
that’s all right.” 

Then, suddenly, with a quick, indefinite gesture of one 
arm, he exclaimed: 


A Story of California 171 

‘‘ Good-bye, I — Fm sorry.” 

He turned away, striding up the stairs, crossing the 
dairy-room, and regained the open air, raging and 
furious. He turned toward the barns, clapping his hat 
upon his head, muttering the while under his breath: 

“Oh, you goat! You beastly fool pip. Good Lord, 
what an ass you’ve made of yourself now! ” 

Suddenly he resolved to put Hilma Tree out of his 
thoughts. The matter was interfering with his work. 
This kind of thing was sure not earning any money. He 
shook himself as though freeing his shoulders of an 
irksome burden, and turned his entire attention to the 
work nearest at hand. 

The prolonged rattle of the shinglers’ hammers upon 
the roof of the big barn attracted him, and, crossing over 
between the ranch house and the artesian well, he stood 
for some time absorbed in the contemplation of the vast 
building, amused and interested with the confusion of 
sounds — the clatter of hammers, the cadenced scrape 
of saws, and the rhythmic shuffle of planes — that issued 
from the gang of carpenters who were at that moment 
putting the finishing touches upon the roof and rows of 
stalls. A boy and two men were busy hanging the great 
sliding door at the south end, while the painters — come 
down from Bonneville early that morning — were en- 
gaged in adjusting the spray and force engine, by means 
of which Annixter had insisted upon painting the vast 
surfaces of the barn, condemning the use of brushes and 
pots for such work as old-fashioned and out-of-date. 

He called to one of the foremen, to ask when the barn 
would be entirely finished, and was told that at the end 
of the week the hay and stock could be installed. 

“ And a precious long time you’ve been at it, too,** 
Annixter declared. 

“ Well, you know the rain ” 


1 72 The Octopus 

** Oh, rot the rain! I work in the rain. You and your 
unions make me sick.’^ 

“ But, Mr. Annixter, we couldn’t have begun painting 
in the rain. The job would have been spoiled.” 

Hoh, yes, spoiled. That’s all very well. Maybe 
it would, and then, again, maybe it wouldn’t.” 

But when the foreman had left him, Annixter could not 
forbear a growl of satisfaction. It could not be denied 
that the barn was superb, monumental even. Almost 
any one of the other barns in the county could be swung, 
bird-cage fashion, inside of it, with room to spare. In 
every sense, the barn was precisely what Annixter had 
hoped of it. In his pleasure over the success of his idea, 
even Hilma for the moment was forgotten. 

'' And, now,” murmured Annixter, ** I’ll give that 
dance in it. I’ll make ’em sit up.” 

It occurred to him that he had better set about sending 
out the invitations for the affair. He was puzzled to de- 
cide just how the thing should be managed, and resolved 
that it might be as well to consult Magnus and Mrs. 
Derrick. 

I want to talk of this telegram of the goat’s with 
Magnus, anyhow,” he said to himself reflectively, ** and 
there’s things I got to do in Bonneville before the first of 
the month.” 

He turned about on his heel with a last look at the 
barn, and set off toward the stable. He had decided to 
have his horse saddled and ride over to Bonneville by 
way of Los Muertos. He would make a day of it, would 
see Magnus, Harran, old Broderson and some of the 
business men of Bonneville. 

A few moments later, he rode out of the barn and the 
stable-yard, a fresh cigar between his teeth, his hat 
slanted over his face against the rays of the sun, as yet 
low in the east. He crossed the irrigating ditch and 


173 


A Story of California 

gained the trail — the short cut over into Los Muertos, 
by way of Hooven’s. It led south and west into the low 
ground overgrown by grey-green willows by Broderson 
Creek, at this time of the rainy season a stream of con- 
siderable volume, farther on dipping sharply to pass 
underneath the Long Trestle of the railroad. On the 
other side of the right of way, Annixter was obliged to 
open the gate in Derrick’s line fence. He managed this 
without dismounting, swearing at the horse the while, 
and spurring him continually. But once inside the gate 
he cantered forward briskly. 

This part of Los Muertos was Hooven’s holding, some 
five hundred acres enclosed between the irrigating ditch 
and Broderson Creek, and half the way across, Annixter 
came up with Hooven himself, busily at work replacing 
a broken washer in his seeder. Upon one of the horses 
hitched to the machine, her hands gripped tightly upon 
the harness of the collar, Hilda, his little daughter, with 
her small, hob-nailed boots and boy’s canvas overalls, sat, 
exalted and petrified with ecstasy and excitement, her 
eyes wide opened, her hair in a tangle. 

“ Hello, Bismarck,” said Annixter, drawing up beside 
him. ** What are you doing here? I thought the Gov- 
ernor was going to manage without his tenants this 
year.” 

‘‘ Ach, Meest’r Ennixter,” cried the other, straighten- 
ing up. ** Ach, dat’s you, eh ? Ach, you bedt he doand 
menege mitout me. Me, I gotta stay. I talk der straighd 
talk mit der Governor. I fix ’em. Ach, you bedt. 
Sieben yahr I hef bei der rench ge-stopped; yais, sir. 
Efery oder sohn-of-a-guhn bei der plaice ged der sach 
bud me. Eh ? Wat you tink von dose ting ? ” 

** I think that’s a crazy-looking monkey-wrench you’ve 
got there,” observed Annixter, glancing at the instru- 
ment in Hooven’s hand. 


^74 


The Octopus 


Ach, dot wrainch/* returned Hooven. “ Soh ! Wail, 
I tell you dose ting now whair I got ’em. Say, you see 
dot wrainch. Dat’s not Emericen wrainch at alle. I 
got ’em at Gravelotte der day we licked der stuffun oudt 
der Frainch, ach, you bedt. Me, I pelong to der Wiir- 
temberg redgimend, dot dey use to suppord der batterie 
von der Brince von Hohenlohe. Alle der day we lay down 
bei der stomach in der feildt behindt der batterie, und 
der schells von der Frainch cennon hef eggsblode — • 
ach, donnerzvetter ! — I tink efery schell eggsblode bei der 
beckside my neck. Und dat go on der whole day, nod- 
dun else, noddun aber der Frainch schell, b-r-r, b-r-r, 
b-r-r, b-r-am, und der smoag, und unzer batterie, dat go 
off slow, steady, yoost like der glock, eins, zwei, boom ! 
eins, zwei, boom! yoost like der glock, ofer und ofer 
again, alle der day. Den vhen der night come dey say we 
hev der great victorie made. I doand know. Vhat do I 
see von der bettle? Noddun. Den we gedt oop und 
maerch und maerch alle night, und in der morgen we 
hear dose cennon egain, hell oaf der way, far-off, I doand 
know vhair. Budt, nef’r mindt. Bretty quick, ach, 
Gott — ” his face flamed scarlet, Ach, du lieber Gotti 
Bretty zoon, dere wass der Kaiser, glose bei, und Fritz, 
Unzer Fritz. Bei Gott, den I go grazy, und yell, ach, 
you bedt, der whole redgimend: * Hoch der Kaiser t 
Hoch der Vaterland! * Und der dears come to der eyes, I 
doand know because vhy, und der mens gry und shaike 
der hend, und der whole redgimend maerch off like dat, 
fairy broudt, bei Gott, der head oop high, und sing ‘ Die 
Wacht am Rhein.’ Dot wass Gravelotte.” 

** And the monkey-wrench? ” 

‘*Ach, I pick ’um oop vhen der batterie go. Der 
cennoniers hef forgedt und leaf ’um. I carry ’um in der 
sack. I tink I use ’um vhen I gedt home in der business. 
I was maker von vagons in Carlsruhe, und I nef’r gedt 


175 


A Story of California 

home again. Vhen der war hef godt over, I go beck to 
Ulm und gedt marriet, und den I gedt demn sick von der 
armie. Vhen I gedt der release, I clair oudt, you bedt 
I come to Emerica. First, New Yor-ruk; den Milwau- 
kee ; den Sbringfieldt-Illinoy ; den Galifornie, und heir I 
stay.” 

“And the Fatherland? Ever want to go back?” 

“ Wail, I tell you dose ting, Meest’r Ennixter. Alle- 
ways, I tink a lot oaf Shairmany, und der Kaiser, und 
nef’r I forgedt Gravelotte. Budt, say, I tell you dose ting, 
Vhair der wife is, und der kinder — der leedle girl Hilda— 
dere is der Vaterland, Eh? Emerica, dat’s my gountry 
now, und dere,” he pointed behind him to the house 
under the mammoth oak tree on the Lower Road, “ dat's 
my home. Dat’s goot enough Vaterland for me.” 

Annixter gathered up the reins, about to go on. 

“ So you like America, do you, Bismarck? ” he said. 
“ Who do you vote for? ” 

“ Emerica ? I doand know,” returned the other, in- 
sistently. “ Dat’s my home yonder. Dat’s my Vater- 
land. Alle von we Shairmens yoost like dot. Shairmany, 
dot’s hell oaf some fine plaice, sure. Budt der Vaterland 
iss vhair der home und der wife und kinder iss. Eh? 
Yes? Voad? Ach, no. Me, I nef’r voad. I doand bod- 
der der haid mit dose ting. I maig der wheat grow, und 
ged der braid fur der wife und Hilda, dot’s all. Dot’s me; 
dot’s Bismarck.” 

“ Good-bye,” commented Annixter, moving off. 

Hooven, the washer replaced, turned to his work 
again, starting up the horses. The seeder advanced, 
whirring. 

“ Ach, Hilda, leedle girl,” he cried, “ hold tight bei der 
shdrapon. 'Htymule! Hoop! Gedt oop, you.” 

Annixter cantered on. In a few moments, he had 
crossed Broderson Creek and had entered upon the 


176 


The Octopus 

Home ranch of Los Muertos. Ahead of him, but so far 
off that the greater portion of its bulk was below the 
horizon, he could see the Derricks’ home, a roof or two 
between the dull green of cypress and eucalyptus. Noth- 
ing else was in sight. The brown earth, smooth, un- 
broken, was as a limitless, mud-coloured ocean. The 
silence was profound. 

Then, at length, Annixter’s searching eye made out a 
blur on the horizon to the northward ; the blur concen- 
trated itself to a speck; the speck grew by steady de- 
grees to a spot, slowly moving, a note of dull colour, 
barely darker than the land, but an inky black silhouette 
as it topped a low rise of ground and stood for a moment 
outlined against the pale blue of the sky. Annixter 
turned his horse from the road and rode across the ranch 
land to meet this new object of interest. As the spot 
grew larger, it resolved itself into constituents, a collec- 
tion of units ; its shape grew irregular, fragmentary. A 
disintegrated, nebulous confusion advanced toward An- 
nixter, preceded, as he discovered on nearer approach, 
by a medley of faint sounds. Now it was no longer a 
spot, but a column, a column that moved, accompanied 
by spots. As Annixter lessened the distance, these spots 
resolved themselves into buggies or men on horseback 
that kept pace with the advancing column. There were 
horses in the column itself. At first glance, it appeared 
as if there were nothing else, a riderless squadron tramp- 
ing steadily over the upturned plough land of the ranch. 
But it drew nearer. The horses were in lines, six abreast, 
harnessed to machines. The noise increased, defined 
itself. There was a shout or two; occasionally a horse 
blew through his nostrils with a prolonged, vibrating 
snort. The click and clink of metal work was incessant, 
the machines throwing off a continual rattle of wheels 
and cogs and clashing springs. The column approached 


177 


A Story of California 

nearer ; was close at hand. The noises mingled to a sub- 
dued uproar, a bewildering confusion; the impact of in- 
numerable hoofs was a veritable rumble. Machine after 
machine appeared ; and Annixter, drawing to one side, 
remained for nearly ten minutes watching and interested, 
while, like an array of chariots — clattering, jostling, 
creaking, clashing, an interminable procession, machine 
succeeding machine, six-horse team succeeding six- 
horse team — bustling, hurried — Magnus Derrick’s 
thirty-three grain drills, each with its eight hoes, went 
clamouring past, like an advance of military, seeding the 
ten thousand acres of the great ranch ; fecundating the 
living soil; implanting deep in the dark womb of the 
Earth the germ of life, the sustenance of a whole world, 
the food of an entire People. 

When the drills had passed, Annixter turned and rode 
back to the Lower Road, over the land now thick with 
seed. He did not wonder that the seeding on Los 
Muertos seemed to be hastily conducted. Magnus and 
Harran Derrick had not yet been able to make up the 
time lost at the beginning of the season, when they had 
waited so long for the ploughs to arrive. They had been 
behindhand all the time. On Annixter’s ranch, the land 
had not only been harrowed, as well as seeded, but in 
some cases, cross-harrowed as well. The labour of put- 
ting in the vast crop was over. Now there was nothing to 
do but wait, while the seed silently germinated ; nothing 
to do but watch for the wheat to come up. 

When Annixter reached the ranch house of Los 
Muertos, under the shade of the cypress and eucalyptus 
trees, he found Mrs. Derrick on the porch, seated in a 
long wicker chair. She had been washing her hair, and 
the light brown locks that yet retained so much of their 
brightness, were carefully spread in the sun over the 
back of her chair. Annixter could not but remark that, 


13 


178 


The Octopus 


spite of her more than fifty years, Annie Derrick was yet 
rather pretty. Her eyes were still those of a young girl, 
just touched with an uncertain expression of innocence 
and inquiry, but as her glance fell upon him, he found 
that that expression changed to one of uneasiness, of 
distrust, almost of aversion. 

The night before this, after Magnus and his wife had 
gone to bed, they had lain awake for hours, staring up 
into the dark, talking, talking. Magnus had not long 
been able to keep from his wife the news of the coalition 
that was forming against the railroad, nor the fact that 
this coalition was determined to gain its ends by any 
means at its command. He had told her of Osterman’s 
scheme of a fraudulent election to seat a Board of Rail- 
road Commissioners, who should be nominees of the 
farming interests. Magnus and his wife had talked this 
matter over and over again; and the same discussion, 
begun immediately after supper the evening before, had 
lasted till far into the night. 

At once, Annie Derrick had been seized with a sudden 
terror lest Magnus, after all, should allow himself to be 
persuaded ; should yield to the pressure that was every 
day growing stronger. None better than she knew the 
iron integrity of her husband’s character. None better 
than she remembered how his dearest ambition, that of 
political preferment, had been thwarted by his refusal to 
truckle, to connive, to compromise with his ideas of 
right. Now, at last, there seemed to be a change. Long 
continued oppression, petty tyranny, injustice and ex- 
tortion had driven him to exasperation. S. Behrman’s 
insults still rankled. He seemed nearly ready to coun- 
tenance Osterman’s scheme. The very fact that he was 
willing to talk of it to her so often and at such great 
length, was proof positive that it occupied his mind. 
The pity of it, the tragedy of itl He, Magnus, the 


179 


A Story of California 

Governor,” who had been so staunch, so rigidly up- 
right, so loyal to his convictions, so bitter in his denun- 
ciation of the New Politics, so scathing in his attacks on 
bribery and corruption in high places ; was it possible 
that now, at last, he could be brought to withhold his 
condemnation of the devious intrigues of the unscrupu- 
lous, going on there under his very eyes ? That Magnus 
should not command Harran to refrain from all inter- 
course with the conspirators, had been a matter of vast 
surprise to Mrs. Derrick. Time was when Magnus 
would have forbidden his son to so much as recognise 
a dishonourable man. 

But besides all this. Derrick’s wife trembled at the 
thought of her husband and son engaging in so desperate 
a grapple with the railroad — that great monster, iron- 
hearted, relentless, infinitely powerful. Always it had 
issued triumphant from the fight; always S. Behrman, 
the Corporation’s champion, remained upon the field 
as victor, placid, unperturbed, unassailable. But now a 
more terrible struggle than any hitherto loomed menac- 
ing over the rim of the future; money was to be spent 
like water ; personal reputations were to be hazarded in 
the issue; failure meant ruin in all directions, financial 
ruin, moral ruin, ruin of prestige, ruin of character. 
Success, to her mind, was almost impossible. Annie 
Derrick feared the railroad. At night, when everything 
else was still, the distant roar of passing trains echoed 
across Los Muertos, from Guadalajara, from Bonneville, 
or from the Long Trestle, straight into her heart. At 
such moments she saw very plainly the galloping terror 
of steam and steel, with its single eye, cyclopean, red, 
shooting from horizon to horizon, symbol of a vast 
power, huge and terrible; the leviathan with tentacles of 
steel, to oppose which meant to be ground to instant de- 
struction beneath the clashing wheels. No, it was better 


i8o The Octopus 

to submit, to resign oneself to the inevitable. She ob^ 
literated herself, shrinking from the harshness of the 
world, striving, with vain hands, to draw her husband 
back with her. 

Just before Annixter's arrival, she had been sitting, 
thoughtful, in her long chair, an open volume of poems 
turned down upon her lap, her glance losing Itself in the 
immensity of Los Muertos that, from the edge of the 
lawn close by, unrolled itself, gigantic, toward the far, 
southern horizon, wrinkled and serrated after the sea- 
son’s ploughing. The earth, hitherto grey with dust, 
was now upturned and brown. As far as the eye could 
reach, it was empty of all life, bare, mournful, absolutely 
still; and, as she looked, there seemed to her morbid 
imagination — diseased and disturbed with long brooding, 
sick with the monotony of repeated sensation — to be 
disengaged from all this immensity, a sense of a vast 
oppression, formless, disquieting. The terror of sheer 
bigness grew slowly in her mind; loneliness beyond 
words gradually enveloped her. She was lost in all these 
limitless reaches of space. Had she been abandoned in 
mid-ocean, in an open boat, her terror could hardly have 
been greater. She felt vividly that certain uncongeniality 
which, when all is said, forever remains between humanity 
and the earth which supports it. She recognised the 
colossal indifference of nature, not hostile, even kindly 
and friendly, so long as the human ant-swarm was sub- 
missive, working with it, hurrying along at its side in the 
mysterious march of the centuries. Let, however, the 
insect rebel, strive to make head against the power of 
this nature, and at once it became relentless, a gigantic 
engine, a vast power, huge, terrible; a leviathan with a 
heart of steel, knowing no compunction, no forgiveness, 
no tolerance; crushing out the human atom with sound- 
less calm, the agony of destruction sending never a jar, 


A Story of California i8i 

never the faintest tremour through all that prodigious 
mechanism of wheels and cogs. 

Such thoughts as these did not take shape distinctly in 
her mind. She could not have told herself exactly what 
it was that disquieted her. She only received the vague 
sensation of these things, as it were a breath of wind 
upon her face, confused, troublous, an indefinite sense 
of hostility in the air. 

The sound of hoofs grinding upon the gravel of the 
driveway brought her to herself again, and, withdrawing 
her gaze from the empty plain of Los Muertos, she saw 
young Annixter stopping his horse by the carriage steps. 
But the sight of him only diverted her mind to the other 
trouble. She could not but regard him with aversion. 
He was one of the conspirators, was one of the leaders 
in the battle that impended; no doubt, he had come to 
make a fresh attempt to win over Magnus to the unholy 
alliance. 

However, there was little trace of enmity in her greet- 
ing. Her hair was still spread, like a broad patch of 
brown sea-weed, upon the white towel over the chair- 
back, and she made that her excuse for not getting up. 
In answer to Annixter’s embarrassed inquiry after Mag- 
nus, she sent the Chinese cook to call him from the office ; 
and Annixter, after tying his horse to the ring driven 
into the trunk of one of the eucalyptus trees, came up to 
the porch, and, taking off his hat, sat down upon the 
steps. 

“ Is Harran anywhere about ? ” he asked. ‘‘ Fd like to 
see Harran, too.” 

** No,” said Mrs. Derrick, " Harran went to Bonne- 
ville early this morning.” 

She glanced toward Annixter nervously, without 
turning her head, lest she should disturb her outspread 
hair. 


i 82 


The Octopus 

** What is it you want to see Mr. Derrick about? she 
inquired hastily. Is it about this plan to elect a Rail- 
road Commission? Magnus does not approve of it/’ she 
declared with energy. “ He told me so last night.” 

Annixter moved about awkwardly where he sat, 
smoothing down with his hand the one stiff lock of yel- 
low hair that persistently stood up from his crown like an 
Indian’s scalp-lock. At once his suspicions were all 
aroused. Ah ! this feemale woman was trying to get a 
hold on him, trying to involve him in a petticoat mess, 
trying to cajole him. Upon the instant, he became very 
crafty; an excess of prudence promptly congealed his 
natural impulses. In an actual spasm of caution, he 
scarcely trusted himself to speak, terrified lest he should 
commit himself to something. He glanced about appre- 
hensively, praying that Magnus might join them speedily, 
relieving the tension. 

I came to see about giving a dance in my new barn,” 
he answered, scowling into the depths of his hat, as 
though reading from notes he had concealed there. I 
wanted to ask how I should send out the mvites. I 
thought of just putting an ad. in the * Mercury.' ” 

But as he spoke, Presley had come up behind An- 
nixter in time to get the drift of the conversation, and 
now observed: 

That’s nonsense. Buck. You’re not giving a public 
ball. You must send out invitations.” 

“ Hello, Presley, you there ? ” exclaimed Annixter, 
turning round. The two shook hands. 

“ Send out invitations?” repeated Annixter uneasily. 
‘‘ Why must I?” 

Because that’s the only way to do.” 

“It is, is it?” answered Annixter, perplexed and 
troubled. No other man of his acquaintance could have 
so contradicted Annixter without provoking a quarrel 


A Story of California 183 

upon the instant. Why the young rancher, irascible, ob- 
stinate, belligerent, should invariably defer to the poet, 
was an inconsistency never to be explained. It was with 
great surprise that Mrs. Derrick heard him continue: 

Well, I suppose you know what you’re talking about, 
Pres. Must have written wvites, hey? ** 

'' Of course.” 

“ Typewritten ? ” 

Why, what an ass you are. Buck,” observed Presley 
calmly. “ Before you get through with it, you will prob- 
ably insult three-fourths of the people you intend to in- 
vite, and have about a hundred quarrels on your hands, 
and a lawsuit or two.” 

However, before Annixter could reply, Magnus came 
out on the porch, erect, grave, freshly shaven. Without 
realising what he was doing, Annixter instinctively rose 
to his feet. It was as though Magnus was a commander- 
in-chief of an unseen army, and he a subaltern. There 
was some little conversation as to the proposed dance, 
and then Annixter found an excuse for drawing the Gov- 
ernor aside. Mrs. Derrick watched the two with eyes 
full of poignant anxiety, as they slowly paced the length 
of the gravel driveway to the road gate, and stood there, 
leaning upon it, talking earnestly; Magnus tall, thin- 
lipped, impassive, one hand in the breast of his frock 
coat, his head bare, his keen, blue eyes fixed upon An- 
nixter’s face. Annixter came at once to the main point. 

I got a wire from Osterman this morning. Gover- 
nor, and, well — we’ve got Disbrow. That means that 
the Denver, Pueblo and Mojave is back of us. There’s 
half the fight won, first off.” 

Osterman bribed him, I suppose,” observed Magnus. 

Annixter raised a shoulder vexatiously. 

“ You’ve got to pay for what you get,” he returned. 
“ You don’t get something for nothing, I guess. Gov- 


i84 


The Octopus 

ernor,” he went on, ** I don’t see how you can stay out of 
this business much longer. You see how it will be. 
We’re going to win, and I don’t see how you can feel 
that it’s right of you to let us do all the work and stand 
all the expense. There’s never been a movement of any 
importance that went on around you that you weren’t the 
leader in it. All Tulare County, all the San Joaquin, for 
that matter, knows you. They want a leader, and they 
are looking to you. I know how you feel about politics 
nowadays. But, Governor, standards have changed 
since your time; everybody plays the game now as we 
are playing it — the most honourable men. You can’t 
play it any other way, and, pshaw ! if the right wins out 
in the end, that’s the main thing. We want you in this 
thing, and we want you bad. You’ve been chewing on 
this affair now a long time. Have you made up your 
mind? Do you come in? I tell you what, you’ve got to 
look at these things in a large way. You’ve got to judge 
by results. Well, now, what do you think? Do you 
come in? ” 

Magnus’s glance left Annixter’s face, and for an in- 
stant sought the ground. His frown lowered, but now it 
was in perplexity, rather than in anger. His mind was 
troubled, harassed with a thousand dissensions. 

But one of Magnus’s strongest instincts, one of his 
keenest desires, was to be, if only for a short time, the 
master. To control men had ever been his ambition; 
submission of any kind, his greatest horror. His energy 
stirred within him, goaded by the lash of his anger, his 
sense of indignity, of insult. Oh for one moment to be 
able to strike back, to crush his enemy, to defeat the rail- 
road, hold the Corporation in the grip of his fist, put 
down S. Behrman, rehabilitate himself, regain his self- 
respect. To be once more powerful, to command, to 
dominate. His thin lips pressed themselves together, 


A Story of California ii^ 

the nostrils of his prominent hawk-like nose dilated, his 
erect, commanding figure stiffened unconsciously. For 
a moment, he saw himself controlling the situation, 
the foremost figure in his State, feared, respected, 
thousands of men beneath him, his ambition at length 
gratified; his career, once apparently brought to naught, 
completed; success a palpable achievement. What if 
this were his chance, after all, come at last after all these 
years. His chance I The instincts of the old-time gam- 
bler, the most redoubtable poker player of El Dorado 
County, stirred at the word. Chance ! To know it when 
it came, to recognise it as it passed fleet as a wind-flurry, 
grip at it, catch at it, blind, reckless, staking all upon the 
hazard of the issue, that was genius. Was this his 
Chance ? All of a sudden, it seemed to him that it was. 
But his honour! His cherished, lifelong integrity, the 
unstained purity of his principles ? At this late date, were 
they to be sacrificed? Could he now go counter to all 
the firm built fabric of his character ? How, afterward, 
could he bear to look Harran and Lyman in the face? 
And, yet — and, yet — ^back swung the pendulum — to ne- 
glect his Chance meant failure ; a life begun in promise, 
and ended in obscurity, perhaps in financial ruin, poverty 
even. To seize it meant achievement, fame, influence, 
prestige, possibly great wealth. 

I am so sorry to interrupt,” said Mrs. Derrick, as 
she came up. I hope Mr. Annixter will excuse me, but 
I want Magnus to open the safe for me. I have lost the 
combination, and I must have some money. Phelps is 
going into town, and I want him to pay some bills for 
me. Can't you come right away, Magnus? Phelps is 
ready and waiting.” 

Annixter struck his heel into the ground with a sup- 
pressed oath. Always these fool feemale women came 
between him and his plans, mixing themselves up in his 


, o6 The Octopus 

affairs. Magnus had been on the very point of saying 
somr’ hing, perhaps committing himself to some course 
of action, and, at precisely the wrong moment, his wife 
had cut in. The opportunity was lost. The three re- 
turned toward the ranch house; but before saying good- 
bye, Annixter had secured from Magnus a promise to the 
effect that^ before coming to a definite decision in the 
matter under discussion, he would talk further with him. 

Presley met him at the porch. He was going into 
town with Phelps, and proposed to Annixter that he 
should accompany them. 

“ I want to go over and see old Broderson,” Annixter 
objected. 

But Presley informed him that Broderson had gone 
to Bonneville earlier in the morning. He had seen him 
go past in his buckboard. The three men set off, Phelps 
and Annixter on horseback, Presley on his bicycle. 

When they had gone, Mrs. Derrick sought out her 
husband in the office of the ranch house. She was at 
her prettiest that morning, her cheeks flushed with ex- 
citement, her innocent, wide-open eyes almost girlish. 
She had fastened her hair, still moist, with a black rib- 
bon tied at the back of her head, and the soft mass of 
light brown reached to below her waist, making her look 
very young. 

“ What was it he was saying to you just now,*^ she 
exclaimed, as she came through the gate in the green- 
painted wire railing of the office. What was Mr. An- 
nixter saying? I know. He was trying to get you to 
join him, trying to persuade you to be dishonest, wasn’t 
that it? Tell me, Magnus, wasn’t that it? ” 

Magnus nodded. 

His wife drew close to him, putting a hand on his 
shoulder. 

“ But you won’t, will you? You won’t listen to him 


A Story of California 187 

again; you won’t so much as allow him — anybody — to 
even suppose you would lend yourself to bribery? Oh, 
Magnus, I don’t know what has come over you these last 
few weeks. Why, before this, you would have been in- 
sulted if any one thought you would even consider any- 
thing like dishonesty. Magnus, it would break my heart 
if you joined Mr. Annixter and Mr. Osterman. Why, 
you couldn’t be the same man to me afterward; you, who 
have kept yourself so clean till now. And the boys; 
what would Lyman say, and Harran, and every one who 
knows you and respects you, if you lowered yourself to 
be just a political adventurer! ” 

For a moment. Derrick leaned his head upon his hand, 
avoiding her gaze. At length, he said, drawing a deep 
breath : 

“ I am troubled, Annie. These are the evil days. I 
have much upon my mind.” 

< “ Evil days or not,” she insisted, promise me this 
one thing, that you will not join Mr. Annixter’s scheme.” 

She had taken his hand in both of hers and was looking 
into his face, her pretty eyes full of pleading. 

'‘Promise me,” she repeated; give me your word. 
Whatever happens, let me always be able to be proud of 
you, as I always have been. Give me your word. I 
know you never seriously thought of joining Mr. An- 
nixter, but I am so nervous and frightened sometimes. 
Just to relieve my mind, Magnus, give me your word.” 

" Why — you are right,” he answered. " No, I never 
thought seriously of it. Only for a moment, I was am- 
bitious to be — I don’t know what — what I had hoped to 
be once — well, that is over now. Annie, your husband is 
a disappointed man.” 

“ Give me your word,” she insisted. We can talk 
about other things afterward.” 

Again Magnus wavered, about to yield to his better 


The Octopus 


i88 

instincts and to the entreaties of his wife. He began to 
see how perilously far he had gone in this business. He 
was drifting closer to it every hour. Already he was 
entangled, already his foot was caught in the mesh that 
was being spun. Sharply he recoiled. Again all his 
instincts of honesty revolted. No, whatever happened, 
he would preserve his integrity. His wife was right. 
Always she had influenced his better side. At that mo- 
ment, Magnus’s repugnance of the proposed political 
campaign was at its pitch of intensity. He wondered 
how he had ever allowed himself to so much as entertain 
the idea of joining with the others. Now, he would 
wrench free, would, in a single instant of power, clear 
himself of all compromising relations. He turned to his 
wife. Upon his lips trembled the promise she implored. 
But suddenly there came to his mind the recollection of 
his new-made pledge to Annixter. He had given his 
word that before arriving at a decision he would have a 
last interview with him. To Magnus, his given word 
was sacred. Though now he wanted to, he could not as 
yet draw back, could not promise his wife that he would 
decide to do right. The matter must be delayed a few 
days longer. 

Lamely, he explained this to her. Annie Derrick 
made but little response when he had done. She kissed 
his forehead and went out of the room, uneasy, de- 
pressed, her mind thronging with vague fears, leaving 
Magnus before his office desk, his head in his hands, 
thoughtful, gloomy, assaulted by forebodings. 

Meanwhile, Annixter, Phelps, and Presley continued 
on their way toward Bonneville. In a short time they 
had turned into the County Road by the great watering- 
tank, and proceeded onward in the shade of the inter- 
minable line of poplar trees, the wind-break that 
Stretched along the roadside bordering the Broderson 


A Story of California 189 

ranch. But as they drew near to Caraher’s saloon and 
grocery, about half a mile outside of Bonneville, they 
recognised Harran’s horse tied to the railing in front of 
it. Annixter left the others and went in to see Harran. 

“ Harran,'’ he said, when the two had sat down on 
either side of one of the small tables, “ you’ve got to 
make up your mind one way or another pretty soon. 
What are you going to do? Are you going to stand by 
and see the rest of the Committee spending money by 
the bucketful in this thing and keep your hands in your 
pockets? If we win, you’ll benefit just as much as the 
rest of us. I suppose you’ve got some money of your 
own — you have, haven’t you? You are your father’s 
manager, aren’t you?” 

Disconcerted at Annixter’s directness, Harran stam- 
mered an affirmative, adding: 

“ It’s hard to know just what to do. It’s a mean posi- 
tion for me, Buck. I want to help you others, but I do 
want to play fair. I don’t know how to play any other 
way. I should like to have a line from the Governor as 
to how to act, but there’s no getting a word out of him 
these days. He seems to want to let me decide for 
myself.” 

“ Well, look here,” put in Annixter. “ Suppose you 
keep out of the thing till it’s all over, and then share and 
share alike with the Committee on campaign expenses.” 

Harran fell thoughtful, his hands in his pockets, frown- 
ing moodily at the toe of his boot. There was a silence. 
Then: 

I don’t like to go it blind,” he hazarded. “ I’m sort 
ot sharing the responsibility of what you do, then. I’m 
a silent partner. And, then — I don’t want to have any 
difficulties with the Governor. We’ve always got along 
well together. He wouldn’t like it, you know, if I did 
anything like that.” 


190 


The Octopus 

“ Say/' exclaimed Annixter abruptly, “ if the Gover- 
nor says he will keep his hands off, and that you can do 
as you please, will you come in? For God’s sake, let us 
ranchers act together for once. Let’s stand in with each 
other in one fight.” 

Without knowing it, Annixter had touched the right 
spring, 

‘‘ I don’t know but what you’re right,” Harran mur- 
mured vaguely. His sense of discouragement, that feel- 
ing of what’s-the-use, was never more oppressive. All 
fair means had been tried. The wheat grower was at 
last with his back to the wall. If he chose his own means 
of fighting, the responsibility must rest upon his enemies, 
not on himself. 

“ It’s the only way to accomplish anything,” he con- 
tinued, “ standing in with each other . . . well, 
« . . go ahead and see what you can do. If the 
Governor is willing. I’ll come in for my share of the 
campaign fund.” 

“ That’s some sense,” exclaimed Annixter, shaking 
him by the hand. Half the fight is over already. We’ve 
got Disbrow you know; and the next thing is to get hold 
of some of those rotten San Francisco bosses. Oster- 

man will ” But Harran interrupted him, making a 

quick gesture with his hand. 

“ Don’t tell me about it,” he said. '' I don’t want to 
know what you and Osterman are going to do. If I did, 
I shouldn’t come in.” 

Yet, for all this, before they said good-bye Annixter 
had obtained Harran’s promise that he would attend the 
next meeting of the Committee, when Osterman should 
return from Los Angeles and make his report. Harran 
went on toward Los Muertos. Annixter mounted and 
rode into Bonneville. 

Bonneville was very lively at all times. It was a little 


A Story of California 191 

city of some twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, 
where, as yet, the city hall, the high school building, and 
the opera house were objects of civic pride. It was well 
governed, beautifully clean, full of the energy and strenu- 
ous young life of a new city. An air of the briskest ac- 
tivity pervaded its streets and sidewalks. The business 
portion of the town, centring about Main Street, was 
always crowded. Annixter, arriving at the Post Office, 
found himself involved in a scene of swiftly shifting sights 
and sounds. Saddle horses, farm wagons — the inevit- 
able Studebakers — buggies grey with the dust of country 
roads, buckboards with squashes and grocery packages 
stowed under the seat, two-wheeled sulkies and training 
carts, were hitched to the gnawed railings and zinc- 
sheathed telegraph poles along the curb. Here and 
there, on the edge of the sidewalk, were bicycles, wedged 
into bicycle racks painted with cigar advertisements. 
Upon the asphalt sidewalk itself, soft and sticky with the 
morning’s heat, was a continuous movement. Men with 
large stomachs, wearing linen coats but no vests, la- 
boured ponderously up and down. Girls in lawn skirts, 
shirt waists, and garden hats, went to and fro, invariably 
in couples, coming in and out of the drug store, the 
grocery store, and haberdasher’s, or lingering in front 
of the Post Office, which was on a corner under the 
I.O.O.F. hall. Young men, in shirt sleeves, with brown, 
wicker cuff-protectors over their forearms, and pencils 
behind their ears, bustled in front of the grocery store, 
anxious and preoccupied. A very old man, a Mexican, 
in ragged white trousers and bare feet, sat on a horse- 
block in front of the barber shop, holding a horse by a 
rope around its neck. A Chinaman went by, teetering 
under the weight of his market baskets slung on a pole 
across his shoulders. In the neighbourhood of the 
hotels the Yosemite House, travelling salesmen, drum- 


192 


The Octopus 

mers for jewelry firms of San Francisco, commercial 
agents, insurance men, well-dressed, metropolitan, deb- 
onair, stood about cracking jokes, or hurried in and 
out of the flapping white doors of the Yosemite bar- 
room. The Yosemite ’bus and City ’bus passed up the 
street, on the way from the morning train, each with its 
two or three passengers. A very narrow wagon, be- 
longing to the Cole & Colemore Harvester Works, went 
by, loaded with long strips of iron that made a horrible 
din as they jarred over the unevenness of the pavement. 
The electric car line, the city’s boast, did a brisk business, 
its cars whirring from end to end of the street, with a 
jangling of bells and a moaning plaint of gearing. On 
the stone bulkheads of the grass plat around the new 
City Hall, the usual loafers sat, chewing tobacco, swap- 
ping stories. In the park were the inevitable array of 
nursemaids, skylarking couples, and ragged little boys. 
A single policeman, in grey coat and helmet, friend and 
acquaintance of every man and woman in the town, stood 
by the park entrance, leaning an elbow on the fence post, 
twirling his club. 

But in the centre of the best business block of the 
street was a three-story building of rough brown stone, 
set off with plate glass windows and gold-lettered signs. 
One of these latter read, “Pacific and Southwestern Rail- 
road, Freight and Passenger Office,” while another, 
much smaller, beneath the windows of the second story, 
bore the inscription, “ P. and S. W. Land Office.” 

Annixter hitched his horse to the iron post in front of 
this building, and tramped up to the second floor, letting 
himself into an office where a couple of clerks and book- 
keepers sat at work behind a high wire screen. One of 
these latter recognised him and came forward. 

“ Hello,” said Annixter abruptly, scowling the while. 
“ Is your boss in? Is Ruggles in? ” 


193 


A Story of California 

The bookkeeper led Annixter to the private office in 
an adjoining room, ushering him through a door, on 
the frosted glass of which was painted the name, “ Cyrus 
Blakelee Ruggles.’^ Inside, a man in a frock coat, shoe- 
string necktie, and Stetson hat, sat writing at a roller- 
top desk. Over this desk was a vast map of the railroad 
holdings in the country about Bonneville and Guadala- 
jara, the alternate sections belonging to the Corporation 
accurately plotted. 

Ruggles was cordial in his welcome of Annixter. He 
had a way of fiddling with his pencil continually while he 
talked, scribbling vague lines and fragments of words 
and names on stray bits of paper, and no sooner had An- 
nixter sat down than he had begun to write, in full-bellied 
script, Ann Ann all over his blotting pad. 

** I want to see about those lands of mine — I mean of 
yours — of the railroad’s,’^ Annixter commenced at once. 
** I want to know when I can buy. I’m sick of fooling 
along like this.” 

** Well, Mr. Annixter,” observed Ruggles, writing 
a great L before the Ann, and finishing it off with a 
flourishing d. “ The lands ” — he crossed out one of the 
n^s and noted the effect with a hasty glance — the lands 
are practically yours. You have an option on them in- 
definitely, and, as it is, you don’t have to pay the taxes.” 

** Rot your option ! I want to own them,” Annixter 
declared. ** What have you people got to gain by putting 
off selling them to us. Here this thing has dragged 
along for over eight years. When I came in on Quien 
Sabe, the understanding was that the lands — your alter- 
nate sections — were to be conveyed to me within a few 
months.” 

**The land had not been patented to us then,” an- 
swered Ruggles. 

Well, it has been now, I guess,” retorted Annixter. 


194 


The Octopus 


“ Fm sure I couldn’t tell you, Mr. Annixter.” 

Annixter crossed his legs weariedly. 

“ Oh, what’s the good of lying, Ruggles? You know 
better than to talk that way to me.” 

Ruggles’s face flushed on the instant, but he checked 
his answer and laughed instead. 

Oh, if you know so much about it — ” he observed. 
Well, when are you going to sell to me? ” 

Fm only acting for the General Office, Mr. An- 
nixter,” returned Ruggles. “ Whenever the Directors 
are ready to take that matter up, Fll be only too glad 
to put it through for you.” 

‘‘ As if you didn’t know. Look here, you’re not talk- 
ing to old Broderson. Wake up, Ruggles. What’s all 
this talk in Genslinger’s rag about the grading of the 
value of our lands this winter and an advance in the 
price? ” 

Ruggles spread out his hands with a deprecatory 
gesture. 

** I don’t own the * Mercury,’ ” he said. 

Well, your company does.” 

If it does, I don’t know anything about it.” 

Oh, rot! As if you and Genslinger and S. Behrman 
didn’t run the whole show down here. Come on, let*? 
have it, Ruggles. What does S. Behrman pay G.<jn- 
slinger for inserting that three-inch ad. of the P. and 
S. W. in his paper? Ten thousand a year, hey? ” 

Oh, why not a hundred thousand and be done with 
it?” returned the other, willing to take it as a joke. 

Instead of replying, Annixter drew his check-book 
from his inside pocket. 

** Let me take that fountain pen of yours,” he said. 
Holding the book on his knee he wrote out a check, tore 
it carefully from the stub, and laid it on the desk in 
front of Ruggles. 


195 


A Story of California 

What’s this?” asked Riiggles. 

Three-fourths payment for the sections of railroad 
land included in my ranch, based on a valuation of two 
dollars and a half per acre. You can have the balance 
in sixty-day notes.” 

Ruggles shook his head, drawing hastily back from 
the check as though it carried contamination. 

“ I can’t touch it,” he declared. I’ve no authority to 
sell to you yet.” 

“ I don’t understand you people,” exclaimed Annix- 
ter. I offered to buy of you the same way four years 
ago and you sang the same song. Why, it isn’t business. 
You lose the interest on your money. Seven per cent, 
of that capital for four years — you can figure it out. 
It’s big money.” 

Well, then, I don’t see why you’re so keen on parting 
with it. You can get seven per cent, the same as us.” 

“ I want to own my own land,” returned Annixter. 
‘‘ I want to feel that every lump of dirt inside my fence 
is my personal property. Why, the very house I live 
in now — the ranch house — stands on railroad ground.” 

But, you’ve an option ” 

“ I tell you I don’t want your cursed option. I want 
ownership; and it’s the same with Magnus Derrick and 
old Broderson and Osterman and all the ranchers of the 
county. We want to own our land, want to feel we can 
do as we blame please with it. Suppose I should want 
to sell Quien Sabe. I can’t sell it as a whole till I’ve 
bought of you. I can’t give anybody a clear title. The 
land has doubled in value ten times over again since I 
came in on it and improved it. It’s worth easily twenty 
an acre now. But I can’t take advantage of that rise 
in value so long as you won’t sell, so long as I don’t own 
it. You’re blocking me.” 

** But, according to you, the railroad can’t take ad- 


196 


The Octopus 


vantage of the rise in any case. According to you, you 
can sell for twenty dollars, but we can only get two and 
a half.” 

“ Who made it worth twenty? ” cried Annixter. IVe 
improved it up to that figure. Genslinger seems to have 
that idea in his nut, too. Do you people think you can 
hold that land, untaxed, for speculative purposes until 
it goes up to thirty dollars and then sell out to some one 
else — sell it over our heads? You and Genslinger 
weren’t in office when those contracts were drawn. You 
ask your boss, you ask S. Behrman, he knows. The 
General Office is pledged to sell to us in preference to 
any one else, for two and a half.” 

Well,” observed Ruggles decidedly, tapping the end 
of his pencil on his desk and leaning forward to empha^ 
sise his words, “ we’re not selling now. That’s said and 
signed, Mr. Annixter.” 

Why not? Come, spit it out. What’s the bunco 
game this time? ” 

Because we’re not ready. Here’s your check.” 

“ You won’t take it? ” 

No.” 

“ I’ll make it a cash payment, money down — the whole 
of it — payable to Cyrus Blakelee Ruggles, for the P. and 
S. W.” 

“ No.” 

** Third and last time.” 

No.” 

Oh, go to the devil ! ” 

“ I don’t like your tone, Mr. Annixter,” returned Rug- 
gles, flushing angrily. 

“ I don’t give a curse whether you like it or not,” re- 
torted Annixter, rising and thrusting the check into his 
pocket, “but never you mind, Mr. Ruggles, you and 
S. Behrman and Genslinger and Shelgrim and the whole 


197 


A Story of California 

gang of thieves of you — you’ll wake this State of Cali- 
fornia up some of these days by going just one little bit 
too far, and there’ll be an election of Railroad Commis- 
sioners of, by, and for the people, that’ll get a twist of 
you, my bunco-steering friend — you and your backers 
and cappers and swindlers and thimble-riggers, and 
smash you, lock, stock, and barrel. That’s my tip to you 
and be damned to you, Mr. Cyrus Blackleg Ruggles.” 

Annixter stormed out of the room, slamming the door 
behind him, and Ruggles, trembling with anger, turned 
to his desk and to the blotting pad written all over with 
the words Lands y Twenty dollars, Two and a half, Option, 
and, over and over again, with great swelling curves and 
flourishes. Railroad, Railroad, Railroad. 

But as Annixter passed into the outside office, on the 
other side of the wire partition he noted the figure of 
a man at the counter in conversation with one of the 
clerks. There was something familiar to Annixter’s eye 
about the man’s heavy built frame, his great shoulders 
and massive back, and as he spoke to the clerk in a tre- 
mendous, rumbling voice, Annixter promptly recognised 
Dyke. 

There was a meeting. Annixter liked Dyke, as did 
every one else in and about Bonneville. He paused now 
to shake hands with the discharged engineer and to ask 
about his little daughter, Sidney, to whom he knew 
Dyke was devotedly attached. 

Smartest little tad in Tulare County,” asserted Dyke. 
** She’s getting prettier every day, Mr. Annixter. There's 
a little tad that was just born to be a lady. Can recite 
the whole of ' Snow Bound ’ without ever stopping. You 
don’t believe that, maybe, hey? Well, it’s true. She’ll 
be just old enough to enter the Seminary up at Marys- 
ville next winter, and if my hop business pays two per 
cent, on the investment, there’s where she’s going to go.” 


198 


The Octopus 


“How’s it coming on?” inquired Annixter. 

“The hop ranch? Prime. I’ve about got the land 
in shape, and I’ve engaged a foreman who knows all 
about hops. I’ve been in luck. Everybody will go into 
the business next year when they see hops go to a dollar, 
and they’ll overstock the market and bust the price. 
But I’m going to get the cream of it now. I say two per 
cent. Why, Lord love you, it will pay a good deal more 
than that. It’s got to. It’s cost more than I figured 
to start the thing, so, perhaps, I may have to borrow 
somewheres; but then on such a sure game as this — and 
I do want to make something out of that little tad of 
mine.” 

“ Through, here? ” inquired Annixter, making ready 
to move off. 

“ In just a minute,” answered Dyke. “ Wait for me 
and I’ll walk down the street with you.” 

Annixter grumbled that he was in a hurry, but waited, 
nevertheless, while Dyke again approached the clerk. 

“ I shall want some empty cars of you people this 
fall,” he explained. “ I’m a hop-raiser now, and I just 
want to make sure what your rates on hops are. I’ve 
been told, but I want to make sure. Savvy? ” 

There was a long delay while the clerk consulted the 
tariff schedules, and Annixter fretted impatiently. Dyke, 
growing uneasy, leaned heavily on his elbows, watching 
the clerk anxiously. If the tariff was exorbitant, he saw 
his plans brought to naught, his money jeopardised, the 
little tad, Sidney, deprived of her education. He began 
to blame himself that he had not long before determined 
definitely what the railroad would charge for moving his 
hops. He told himself he was not much of a business 
man; that he managed carelessly. 

“ Two cents,” suddenly announced the clerk with a 
certain surly indifference. 


199 


A Story of California 

Two cents a pound? ” 

'' Yes, two cents a pound — that's in car-load lots, of 
course. I won’t give you that rate on smaller consign- 
ments.” 

“ Yes, car-load lots, of course . . . two cents. 
Well, all right.” 

He turned away with a great sigh of relief. 

He sure did have me scared for a minute,” he said 
to Annixter, as the two went down to the street, “fiddling 
and fussing so long. Two cents is all right, though. 
Seems fair to me. That fiddling of his was all put 
on. I know ’em, these railroad heelers. He knew I 
was a discharged employee first off, and he played the 
game just to make me seem small because I had to ask 
favours of him. I don’t suppose the General Office tips 
its slavees off to act like swine, but there’s the feeling 
through the whole herd of them. * Ye got to come to 
us. We let ye live only so long as we choose, and what 
are ye going to do about it? If ye don’t like it, git 
out.’ ” 

Annixter and the engineer descended to the street and 
had a drink at the Yosemite bar, and Annixter went into 
the General Store while Dyke bought a little pair of red 
slippers for Sidney. Before the salesman had wrapped 
them up. Dyke slipped a dime into the toe of each with 
a wink at Annixter. 

“ Let the little tad find ’em there,” he said behind his 
hand in a hoarse whisper. “ That’ll be one on Sid.” 

“ Where to now ? ” demanded Annixter as they re- 
gained the street. “ I’m going down to the Post Office 
and then pull out for the ranch. Going my way? ” 

Dyke hesitated in some confusion, tugging at the ends 
of his fine blonde beard. 

“ No, no. I guess I’ll leave you here. I’ve got — got 
other things to do up the street. So long.” 


200 


The Octopus 


The two separated, and Annixter hurried through the 
crowd to the Post Office, but the mail that had come in 
on that morning’s train was unusually heavy. It was 
nearly half an hour before it was distributed. Naturally 
enough, Annixter placed all the blame of the delay upon 
the railroad, and delivered himself of some pointed re- 
marks in the midst of the waiting crowd. He was irri- 
tated to the last degree when he finally emerged upon 
the sidewalk again, cramming his mail into his pockets. 
One cause of his bad temper was the fact that in the 
bundle of Quien Sabe letters was one to Hilma Tree 
in a man’s handwriting. 

‘‘ Huh! ” Annixter had growled to himself, ** that pip 
Delaney. Seems now that I’m to act as go-between for 
’em. Well, maybe that feemale girl gets this letter, and 
then, again, maybe she don’t.” 

But suddenly his attention was diverted. Directly 
opposite the Post Office, upon the corner of the street, 
stood quite the best business building of which Bonne- 
ville could boast. It was built of Colusa granite, very 
solid, ornate, imposing. Upon the heavy plate of the 
window of its main floor, in gold and red letters, one read 
the words: “ Loan and Savings Bank of Tulare County.” 
It was of this bank that S. Behrman was president. At 
the street entrance of the building was a curved sign of 
polished brass, fixed upon the angle of the masonry; this 
sign bore the name, “ S. Behrman,” and under it in 
smaller letters were the words, “ Real Estate, Mort- 
gages.” 

As Annixter’s glance fell upon this building, he was 
surprised to see Dyke standing upon the curb in front 
of it, apparently reading from a newspaper that he held 
in his hand. But Annixter promptly discovered that he 
was not reading at all. From time to time the former 
engineer shot a swift glance out of the corner of his eye 


201 


A Story of California 

up and down the street. Annixter jumped at a conclu- 
sion. An idea suddenly occurred to him. Dyke was 
watching to see if he was observed — was waiting an 
opportunity when no one who knew him should be in 
sight. Annixter stepped back a little, getting a tele- 
graph pole somewhat between him and the other. Very 
interested, he watched what was going on. Pretty soon 
Dyke thrust the paper into his pocket and sauntered 
slowly to the windows of a stationery store, next the 
street entrance of S. Behrman’s offices. For a few 
seconds he stood there, his back turned, seemingly ab- 
sorbed in the display, but eyeing the street narrowly 
nevertheless; then he turned around, gave a last look 
about and stepped swiftly into the doorway by the great 
brass sign. He disappeared. Annixter came from be- 
hind the telegraph pole with a flush of actual shame upon 
his face. There had been something so slinking, so 
mean, in the movements and manner of this great, burly 
honest fellow of an engineer, that he could not help but 
feel ashamed for him. Circumstances were such that 
a simple business transaction was to Dyke almost cul- 
pable, a degradation, a thing to be concealed. 

“ Borrowing money of S. Behrman,” commented An- 
nixter, “ mortgaging your little homestead to the rail- 
road, putting your neck in the halter. Poor fool! The 
pity of it. Good Lord, your hops must pay you big, now, 
old man.” 

Annixter lunched at the Yosemite Hotel, and then 
later on, toward the middle of the afternoon, rode out 
of the town at a canter by the way of the Upper Road 
that paralleled the railroad tracks and that ran diamet- 
rically straight between Bonneville and Guadalajara. 
About half-way between the two places he overtook 
Father Sarria trudging back to San Juan, his long cas- 
sock powdered with dust. He had a wicker crate in one 


202 


The Octopus 


hand, and in the other, in a small square valise, the 
materials for the Holy Sacrament. Since early morn- 
ing the priest had covered nearly fifteen miles on foot, 
in order to administer Extreme Unction to a moribund 
good-for-nothing, a greaser, half Indian, half Portu- 
guese, who lived in a remote corner of Osterman’s stock 
range, at the head of a canon there. But he had re- 
turned by way of Bonneville to get a crate that had come 
for him from San Diego. He had been notified of its 
arrival the day before. 

Annixter pulled up and passed the time of day with the 
priest. 

“ I don’t often get up your way,” he said, slowing down 
his horse to accommodate Sarria’sMeliberate plodding. 
Sarria wiped the perspiration from his smooth, shiny 
face. 

“You? Well, with you it is different,” he answered. 
“ But there are a great many Catholics in the county — 
some on your ranch. And so few come to the Mission. 
At High Mass on Sundays, there are a few — Mexicans 
and Spaniards from Guadalajara mostly ; but weekdays, 
for matins, vespers, and the like, I often say the offices to 
an empty church — ‘ the voice of one crying in the wilder- 
ness.’ You Americans are not good churchmen. Sun- 
days you sleep — you read the newspapers.” 

“ Well, there’s Vanamee,” observed Annixter. “ I 
suppose he’s there early and late.” 

Sarria made a sharp movement of interest. 

“ Ah, Vanamee — a strange lad; a wonderful character, 
for all that. If there were only more like him. I am 
troubled about him. You know I am a very owl at 
night. I come and go about the Mission at all hours. 
Within the week, three times I have seen Vanamee in 
the little garden by the Mission, and at the dead of night. 
He had come without asking for me. He did not see 


203 


A Story of California 

me. It was strange. Once, when I had got up at dawn 
to ring for early matins, I saw him stealing away out of 
the garden. He must have been there all the night. He 
is acting queerly. He is pale; his cheeks are more 
sunken than ever. There is something wrong with him. 
I can’t make it out. It is a mystery. Suppose you ask 
him? ” 

“ Not I. I’ve enough to bother myself about. Van- 
amee is crazy in the head. Some morning he will turn 
up missing again, and drop out of sight for another 
three year?. Best let him alone, Sarria. He’s a crank. 
How is that greaser of yours up on Osterman’s stock 
range? ” 

“ Ah, the poor fellow — the poor fellow,” returned the 
other, the tears coming to his eyes. “ He died this 
morning — as you might say, in my arms, painfully, but 
in the faith, in the faith. A good fellow.” 

“ A lazy, cattle-stealing, knife-in-his-boot Dago.” 

You misjudge him. A really good fellow on better 
acquaintance.” 

Annixter grunted scornfully. Sarria’s kindness and 
good-will toward the most outrageous reprobates of 
the ranches was proverbial. He practically supported 
some half-dozen families that lived in forgotten cabins, 
lost and all but inaccessible, in the far corners of stock 
range and canon. This particular greaser was the lazi- 
est, the dirtiest, the most worthless of the lot. But in 
Sarria’s mind, the lout was an object of affection, sin- 
cere, unquestioning. Thrice a week the priest, with a 
basket of provisions — cold ham, a bottle of wine, olives, 
loaves of bread, even a chicken or two — toiled over the 
interminable stretch of country between the Mission 
and his cabin. Of late, during the rascal’s sickness, 
these visits had been almost daily. Hardly once did 
the priest leave the bedside that he did not slip a half- 


204 


The Octopus 

dollar into the palm of his wife or oldest daughter. And 
this was but one case out of many. 

His kindliness toward animals was the same. A horde 
of mange-corroded curs lived off his bounty, wolfish, 
ungrateful, often marking him with their teeth, yet never 
knowing the meaning of a harsh word. A burro, over- 
fed, lazy, incorrigible, browsed on the hill back of the 
Mission, obstinately refusing to be harnessed to Sarria's 
little cart, squealing and biting whenever the attempt 
was made; and the priest suffered him, submitting to his 
humour, inventing excuses for him, alleging that the bur- 
ro was foundered, or was in need of shoes, or was feeble 
from extrem<it age. The two peacocks, magnificent, 
proud, cold-hearted, resenting all familiarity, he served 
with the timorous, apologetic affection of a queen’s lady- 
in-waiting, resigned to their disdain, happy if only they 
condescended to enjoy the grain he spread for them. 

At the Long Trestle, Annixter and the priest left the 
road and took the trail that crossed Broderson Creek 
by the clumps of grey-green willows and led across 
Quien Sabe to the ranch house, and to the Mission far- 
ther on. They were obliged to proceed in single file 
here, and Annixter, who had allowed the priest to go in 
front, promptly took notice of the wicker basket he car- 
ried. Upon his inquiry, Sarria became confused. '' It 
was a basket that he had had sent down to him from the 
city.” 

Well, I know — but what’s in it? ” 

“ Why — I’m sure — ah, poultry — a chicken or two.” 

** Fancy breed? ” 

“ Yes, yes, that’s it, a fancy breed.” 

At the ranch house, where they arrived toward five 
o’clock, Annixter insisted that the priest should stop 
long enough for a glass of sherry. Sarria left the basket 
and his small black valise at the foot of the porch steps, 


205 


A Story of California 

and sat down in a rocker on the porch itself, fanning 
himself with his broad-brimmed hat, and shaking the 
dust from his cassock. Annixter brought out the de- 
canter of sherry and glasses, and the two drank to each 
other’s health. 

But as the priest set down his glass, wiping his lips 
with a murmur of satisfaction, the decrepit Irish setter 
that had attached himself to Annixter’s house came out 
from underneath the porch, and nosed vigorously about 
the wicker basket. He upset it. The little peg holding 
down the cover slipped, the basket fell sideways, opening 
as it fell, and a cock, his head enclosed in a little chamois 
bag such as are used for gold watches, struggled blindly 
out into the open air. A second, similarly hooded, fol- 
lowed. The pair, stupefied in their headgear, stood rigid 
and bewildered in their tracks, clucking uneasily. Their 
tails were closely sheared. Their legs, thickly muscled, 
and extraordinarily long, were furnished with enormous 
cruel-looking spurs. The breed was unmistakable. An- 
nixter looked once at the pair, then shouted with laugh- 
ter. 

‘ Poultry ’ — * a chicken or two ’ — ^ fancy breed ’ — 
ho! yes, I should think so. Game cocks! Fighting 
cocks! Oh, you old rat ! You’ll be a dry nurse to a burro, 
and keep a hospital for infirm puppies, but you will fight 
game cocks. Oh, Lord! Why, Sarria, this is as good 
a grind as I ever heard. There’s the Spanish cropping 
out, after all.” 

Speechless with chagrin, the priest bundled the cocks 
into the basket and catching up the valise, took himself 
abruptly away, almost running till he had put himself 
out of hearing of Annixter’s raillery. And even ten 
minutes later, when Annixter, still chuckling, stood upon 
the porch steps, he saw the priest, far in the distance, 
climbing the slope of the high ground, in the direction 


206 


The Octopus 

of the Mission, still hurrying on at a great pace, his 
cassock flapping behind him, his head bent; to Annixter^s 
notion the very picture of discomfiture and confusion. 

As Annixter turned about to reenter the house, he 
found himself almost face to face with Hilma Tree, She 
was just going in at the doorway, and a great flame of 
the sunset, shooting in under the eaves of the porch, 
enveloped her from her head, with its thick, moist hair 
that hung low over her neck, to her slim feet, setting a 
golden flash in the little steel buckles of her low shoes. 
She had come to set the table for Annixter’s supper. 
Taken all aback by the suddenness of the encounter, 
Annixter ejaculated an abrupt and senseless, Excuse 
me.” But Hilma, without raising her eyes, passed on 
unmoved into the dining-room, leaving Annixter trying 
to find his breath, and fumbling with the brim of his hat, 
that he was surprised to find he had taken from his head. 
Resolutely, and taking a quick advantage of his oppor- 
tunity, he followed her into the dining-room. 

“ I see that dog has turned up,” he announced with 
brisk cheerfulness. That Irish setter I was asking 
about.” 

Hilma, a swift, pink flush deepening the delicate rose 
of her cheeks, did not reply, except by nodding her head. 
She flung the table-cloth out from under her arms across 
the table, spreading it smooth, with quick little caresses 
of her hands. There was a moment’s silence. Then 
Annixter said : 

Here’s a letter for you.” He laid it down on the 
table near her, and Hilma picked it up. ** And see here, 
Miss Hilma,” Annixter continued, “ about that — this 
morning — I suppose you think I am a first-class mucker. 
If it will do any good to apologise, why, I will. I want 
to be friends with you. I made a bad mistake, and 
started in the wrong way. I don’t know much about 


207 


A Story of California 

women people. I want you to forget about that — this 
morning, and not think I am a galoot and a mucker. Will 
you do it? Will you be friends with me? ” 

Hilma set the plate and coffee cup by Annixter’s place 
before answering, and Annixter repeated his question. 
Then she drew a deep, quick breath, the flush in her 
cheeks returning. 

“ I think it was — it was so wrong of you,” she mur- 
mured. Oh ! you don't know how it hurt me. I cried 
— oh, for an hour.” 

“ Well, that's just it,” returned Annixter vaguely, 
moving his head uneasily. “ I didn't know what kind 
of a girl you were — I mean, I made a mistake. I thought 
it didn't make much difference. I thought all feemales 
were about alike.” 

“ I hope you know now,” murmured Hilma ruefully. 
“ I've paid enough to have you find out. I cried — you 
don't know. Why, it hurt me worse than anything I can 
remember. I hope you know now.” 

“ Well, I do know now,” he exclaimed. 

“ It wasn't so much that you tried to do — what you 
did,” answered Hilma, the single deep swell from her 
waist to her throat rising and falling in her emotion. 
“ It was that you thought that you could — that anybody 
could that wanted to — that I held myself so cheap. 
Oh!” she cried, with a sudden sobbing catch in her 
throat, “ I never can forget it, and you don't know what 
it means to a girl.” 

Well, that's just what I do want,” he repeated. “ I 
want you to forget it and have us be good friends.” 

In his embarrassment, Annixter could think of no 
other words. He kept reiterating again and again dur- 
ing the pauses of the conversation : 

“ I want you to forget it. Will you? Will you forget 
it — that — this morning, and have us be good friends?” 


2o8 


The Octopus 


He could see that her trouble was keen. He was 
astonished that the matter should be so grave in her 
estimation. After all, what was it that a girl should be 
kissed? But he wanted to regain his lost ground. 

“ Will you forget it, Miss Hilma ? I want you to like 
me. 

She took a clean napkin from the sideboard drawer 
and laid it down by the plate. 

'' I — I do want you to like me,” persisted Annixter. 
“ I want you to forget all about this business and like 
me. 

Hilma was silent. Annixter saw the tears in her eyes. 

“ How about that ? Will you forget it ? Will you — 
will — will you like me? ” 

She shook her head. 

No,” she said. 

No what? You won’t like me? Is that it?” 

Hilma, blinking at the napkin through her tears, 
nodded to say. Yes, that was it. 

Annixter hesitated a moment, frowning, harassed and 
perplexed. 

“ You don’t like me at all, hey? ” 

At length Hilma found her speech. In her low voice, 
lower and more velvety than ever, she said: 

“ No — I don’t like you at all.” 

Then, as the tears suddenly overpowered her, she 
dashed a hand across her eyes, and ran from the room 
and out of doors. 

Annixter stood for a moment thoughtful, his pro- 
truding lower lip thrust out, his hands in his pocket. 

'' I suppose she’ll quit now,” he muttered. ‘‘ Suppose 
she’ll leave the ranch — if she hates me like that. Well, 
she can go — that’s all — she can go. Fool feemale girl,” 
he muttered between his teeth, petticoat mess.” 

He was about to sit down to his supper when his eye 


209 


A Story of California 

fell upon the Irish setter, on his haunches in the doorway. 
There was an expectant, ingratiating look on the dog’s 
face. No doubt, he suspected it was time for eating. 

Get out — you!” roared Annixter in a tempest of 
wrath. 

The dog slunk back, his tail shut down close, his ears 
drooping, but instead of running away, he lay down and 
rolled supinely upon his back, the very image of sub- 
mission, tame, abject, disgusting. It was the one thing 
to drive Annixter to a fury. He kicked the dog off the 
porch in a rolling explosion of oaths, and flung himself 
down to his seat before the table, fuming and panting. 

'' Damn the dog and the girl and the whole rotten 
business — and now,” he exclaimed, as a sudden fancied 
qualm arose in his stomach, now, it’s all made me sick. 
Might have known it. Oh, it only lacked that to wind 
up the whole day. Let her go, I don’t care, and the 
sooner the better.” 

He countermanded the supper and went to bed before 
it was dark, lighting his lamp, on the chair near the head 
of the bed, and opening his Copperfield ” at the place 
marked by the strip of paper torn from the bag of 
prunes. For upward of - an hour he read the novel, 
methodically swallowing one prune every time he 
reached the bottom of a page. About nine o’clock he 
blew out the lamp and, punching up his pillow, settled 
himself for the night. 

Then, as his mind relaxed in that strange, hypnotic 
condition that comes just before sleep, a series of pic- 
tures of the day’s doings passed before his imagination 
like the roll of a kinetoscope. 

First, it was Hilma Tree, as he had seen her in the 
dairy-house — charming, delicious, radiant of youth, her 
thick, white neck with its pale amber shadows under the 
chin ; her wide, open eyes rimmed with fine, black lashes ; 


*4 


210 


Tlie Octopus 


the deep swell of her breast and hips, the delicate, lus- 
trous floss on her cheek, impalpable as the pollen of a 
flower. He saw her standing there in the scintillating 
light of the morning, her smooth arms wet with milk, 
redolent and fragrant of milk, her whole, desirable figure 
moving in the golden glory of the sun, steeped in a lam- 
bent flame, saturated with it, glowing with it, joyous as 
the dawn itself. 

Then it was Los Muertos and Hooven, the sordid 
little Dutchman, grimed with the soil he worked in, yet 
vividly remembering a period of military glory, exciting 
himself with recollections of Gravelotte and the Kaiser, 
but contented now in the country of his adoption, defining 
the Fatherland as the place where wife and children lived. 
Then came the ranch house of Los Muertos, under the 
grove of cypress and eucalyptus, with its smooth, grav- 
elled driveway and well-groomed lawns; Mrs. Derrick 
with her wide-opened eyes, that so easily took on a look 
of uneasiness, of innocence, of anxious inquiry, her face 
still pretty, her brown hair that still retained so much 
of its brightness spread over her chair back, drying in 
the sun; Magnus, erect as an officer of cavalry, smooth- 
shaven, grey, thin-lipped, imposing, with his hawk-like 
nose and forward-curling grey hair; Presley with his 
dark face, delicate mouth and sensitive, loose lips, in 
corduroys and laced boots, smoking cigarettes — an in- 
teresting figure, suggestive of a mixed origin, morbid, 
excitable, melancholy, brooding upon things that had no 
names. Then it was Bonneville, with the gayety and 
confusion of Main Street, the whirring electric cars, the 
zinc-sheathed telegraph poles, the buckboards with 
squashes stowed under the seats; Ruggles in frock coat, 
Stetson hat and shoe-string necktie, writing abstract- 
edly upon his blotting pad; Dyke, the engineer, big- 
bpped, powerful, deep-voiced, good-natured, with hi? 


A Story of California 21 1 

fine blonde beard and massive arms, rehearsing the 
praises of his little daughter Sidney, guided only by the 
one ambition that she should be educated at a seminary, 
slipping a dime into the toe of her diminutive slipper, 
then, later, overwhelmed with shame, slinking into S. 
Behrman's office to mortgage his homestead to the 
heeler of the corporation that had discharged him. By 
suggestion, Annixter saw S. Behrman, too, fat, with a 
vast stomach, the check and neck meeting to form a 
great, tremulous jowl, the roll of fat over his collar, 
sprinkled with sparse, stiff hairs; saw his brown, round- 
topped hat of varnished straw, the linen vest stamped 
with innumerable interlocked horseshoes, the heavy watch 
chain, clinking against the pearl vest buttons ; invariably 
placid, unruffled, never losing his temper, serene, unas- 
sailable, enthroned. 

Then, at the end of all, it was the ranch again, seen in 
a last brief glance before he had gone to bed; the fecun- 
dated earth, calm at last, nursing the emplanted germ of 
life, ruddy with the sunset, the horizons purple, the small 
clamour of the day lapsing into quiet, the great, still twi- 
light, building itself, dome-like, toward the zenith. The 
barn fowls were roosting in the trees near the stable, the 
horses crunching their fodder in the stalls, the day^s work 
ceasing by slow degrees; and the priest, the Spanish 
churchman. Father Sarria, relic of a departed regime, 
kindly, benign, believing in all goodness, a lover of his 
fellows and of dumb animals, yet, for all that, hurrying 
away in confusion and discomfiture, carrying in one 
hand the vessels of the Holy Communion and in the 
other a basket of game cocks. 


CHAPTER VI 


It was high noon, and the rays of the sun, that hung 
poised directly overhead in an intolerable white glory, fell 
straight as plummets upon the roofs and streets of Gua- 
dalajara. The adobe walls and sparse brick sidewalks 
of the drowsing town radiated the heat in an oily, quiver- 
ing shimmer. The leaves of the eucalyptus trees around 
the Plaza drooped motionless, limp and relaxed under the 
scorching, searching blaze. The shadows of these trees 
had shrunk to their smallest circumference, contracting 
close about the trunks. The shade had dwindled to the 
breadth of a mere line. The sun was everywhere. The 
heat exhaling from brick and plaster and metal met the 
heat that steadily descended blanketwise and smother- 
ing, from the pale, scorched sky. Only the lizards — they 
lived in chinks of the crumbling adobe and in interstices 
of the sidewalk — remained without, motionless, as if 
stuifed, their eyes closed to mere slits, basking, stupefied 
with heat. At long intervals the prolonged drone of an 
insect developed out of the silence, vibrated a moment in 
a soothing, somnolent, long note, then trailed slowly into 
the quiet again. Somewhere in the interior of one of the 
Mobe houses a guitar snored and hummed sleepily. On 
the roof of the hotel a group of pigeons cooed incessantly 
with subdued, liquid murmurs, very plaintive ; a cat, per- 
fectly white, with a pink nose and thin, pink lips, dozed 
complacently on a fence rail, full in the sun. In a corner 
of the Plaza three hens wallowed in the baking hot dust, 
their wings fluttering, clucking comfortably. 


213 


A Story of California 

And this was all. A Sunday repose prevailed the whole 
moribund town, peaceful, profound. A certain pleasing 
numbness, a sense of grateful enervation exhaled from 
the scorching plaster. There was no movement, no sound 
of human business. The faint hum of the insect, the 
intermittent murmur of the guitar, the mellow complain- 
ings of the pigeons, the prolonged purr of the white cat, 
the contented clucking of the hens — all these noises min- 
gled together to form a faint, drowsy bourdon, pro- 
longed, stupefying, suggestive of an infinite quiet, of a 
calm, complacent life, centuries old, lapsing gradually to 
its end under the gorgeous loneliness of a cloudless, pale 
blue sky and the steady fire of an interminable sun. 

In Solotari's Spanish-Mexican restaurant, Vanamee 
and Presley sat opposite each other at one of the tables 
near the door, a bottle of white wine, tortillas, and an 
earthen pot of frijoles between them. They were the 
sole occupants of the place. It was the day that Annix- 
ter had chosen for his barn-dance and, in consequence, 
Quien Sabe was in fete and work suspended. Presley 
and Vanamee had arranged to spend the day in each 
other’s company, lunching at Solotari’s and taking a long 
tramp in the afternoon. For the moment they sat back 
in their chairs, their meal all but finished. Solotari 
brought black coffee and a small carafe of mescal, and 
retiring to a corner of the room, went to sleep. 

All through the meal Presley had been wondering over 
a certain change he observed in his friend. He looked 
at him again. 

Vanamee’s lean, spare face was of an olive pallor. His 
long, black hair, such as one sees in the saints and evan- 
gelists of the pre-Raphaelite artists, hung over his ears. 
Presley again remarked his pointed beard, black and fine, 
growing from the hollow cheeks. He looked at his face, 
a face like that of a young seer^ like a half-inspired 


214 


The Octopus 

Sihepherd of the Hebraic legends, a dweller in the wilder* 
Siess, gifted with strange powers. He was dressed as 
when Presley had first met him, herding his sheep, in 
brown canvas overalls, thrust into top boots ; grey flannel 
shirt, open at the throat, showing the breast ruddy with 
tan; the waist encircled with a cartridge belt, empty of 
cartridges. 

But now, as Presley took more careful note of him, he 
was surprised to observe a certain new look in Vanamee's 
deep-set eyes. He remembered now that all through the 
morning Vanamee had been singularly reserved. He was 
continually drifting into reveries, abstracted, distrait. 
Indubitably, something of moment had happened. 

At length Vanamee spoke. Leaning back in his chair, 
his thumbs in his belt, his bearded chin upon his breast, 
his voice was the even monotone of one speaking in his 
deep. 

He told Presley in a few words what had happened 
during the first night he had spent in the garden of the 
old Mission, of the Answer, half-fancied, half-real, that 
had come to him. 

'' To no other person but you would I speak of this,'^ 
he said, but you, I think, will understand — will be sym- 
pathetic, at least, and I feel the need of unburdening 
myself of it to some one. At first I would not trust my 
own senses. I was sure I had deceived myself, but on a 
second night it happened again. Then I was afraid — or 
no, not afraid, but disturbed — oh, shaken to my very 
heart’s core. I resolved to go no further in the matter, 
never again to put it to test. For a long time I stayed 
away from the Mission, occupying myself with my work, 
keeping it out of my mind. But the temptation was too 
strong. One night I found myself there again, under 
the black shadow of the pear trees calling for Angele, 
summoning her frcEa out the dark, from out the night 


215 


A Story of California 

This time the Answer was prompt, unmistakable. I can- 
not explain to you what it was, nor how it came to me, 
for there was no sound. I saw absolutely nothing but 
the empty night. There was no moon. But somewhere 
off there over the little valley, far off, the darkness was 
troubled ; that me that went out upon my thought — out 
from the Mission garden, out over the valley, calling for 
her, searching for her, found, I don’t know what, but 
found a resting place — a companion. Three times since 
then I have gone to the Mission garden at night. Last 
night was the third time.” 

He paused, his eyes shining with excitement. Presley 
leaned forward toward him, motionless with intense 
absorption. 

Well — and last night,” he prompted. 

Vanamee stirred in his seat, his glance fell, he drummed 
an instant upon the table. 

'‘Last night,” he answered, “there was — there was a 
change. The Answer was — ” he drew a deep breath — 
“ nearer.” 

“ You are sure?” 

The other smiled with absolute certainty. 

“ It was not that I found the Answer sooner, easier. I 
could not be mistaken. No, that which has troubled the 
darkness, that which has entered into the empty night — is 
coming nearer to me — physically nearer, actually nearer.” 

His voice sank again. His face like the face of younger 
prophets, the seers, took on a half-inspired expression. 
He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes. 

“ Suppose,” he murmured, “ suppose I stand there 
under the pear trees at night and call her again and again, 
and each time the Answer comes nearer and nearer and I 
wait until at last one night, the supreme night of all, 
she — she ” 

Suddenly the tension broke. With a sharp cry and a 


2i6 The Octopus 

violent uncertain gesture of the hand Vanamee came to 
himself. 

“ Oh,” he exclaimed, '' what is it ? Do I dare ? What 
does it mean? There are times when it appals me and 
there are times when it thrills me with a sweetness and a 
happiness that I have not known since she died. The 
vagueness of it! How can I explain it to you, this that 
happens when I call to her across the night — ^that faint, 
far-off, unseen tremble in the darkness, that intangible, 
scarcely perceptible stir. Something neither heard nor 
seen, appealing to a sixth sense only. Listen, it is some- 
thing like this : On Quien Sabe, all last week, we have 
been seeding the earth. The grain is there now under 
the earth buried in the dark, in the black stillness, under 
the clods. Can you imagine the first — the very first little 
quiver of life that the grain of wheat must feel after it is 
sown, when it answers to the call of the sun, down there 
in the dark of the earth, blind, deaf; the very first stir 
from the inert, long, long before any physical change has 
occurred, — ^long before the microscope could discover the 
slightest change, — when the shell first tightens with the 
first faint premonition of life? Well, it is something as 
illusive as that.” He paused again, dreaming, lost in a 
reverie, then, just above a whisper, murmured: 

“ * That which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
die,’ . . . and she, Angele . . . died.” 

'^You could not have been mistaken?” said Presley. 
** You were sure that there was something? Imagination 
can do so much and the influence of the surroundings 
was strong. How impossible it would be that anything 
should happen. And you say you heard nothing, saw 
nothing.” 

I believe,” answered Vanamee, in a sixth sense, or, 
rather, a whole system of other unnamed senses beyond 
the reach of our understanding. People who live much 


217 


A Story of California 

alone and close to nature experience the sensation of it. 
Perhaps it is something fundamental that we share with 
plants and animals. The same thing that sends the 
birds south long before the first colds, the same thing that 
makes the grain of wheat struggle up to meet the sun. 
And this sense never deceives. You may see wrong, 
hear wrong, but once touch this sixth sense and it acts 
with absolute fidelity, you are certain. No, I hear noth- 
ing in the Mission garden. I see nothing, nothing 
touches me, but I am certain for all that.’' 

Presley hesitated for a moment, then he asked: 

Shall you go back to the garden again ? Make the 
test again ? ” 

'' I don’t know.” 

Strange enough,” commented Presley, wondering. 

Vanamee sank back in his chair, his eyes growing 
vacant again: 

Strange enough,” he murmured. 

There was a long silence. Neither spoke nor moved. 
There, in that moribund, ancient town, wrapped in its 
siesta, flagellated with heat, deserted, ignored, baking in 
a noon-day silence, these two strange men, the one a poet 
by nature, the other by training, both out of tune with 
their world, dreamers, introspective, morbid, lost and un- 
familiar at that end-of-the-century time, searching for a 
sign, groping and baffled amidst the perplexing obscurity 
of the Delusion, sat over empty wine glasses, silent with 
the pervading silence that surrounded them, hearing only 
the cooing of doves and the drone of bees, the quiet so 
profound, that at length they could plainly distinguish at 
intervals the puffing and coughing of a locomotive 
switching cars in the station yard of Bonneville. 

It was, no doubt, this jarring sound that at length 
roused Presley from his lethargy. The two friends rose ; 
Solotari very sleepily came forward; they paid for the 


2I8 


The Octopus 

luncheon, and stepping out into the heat and glare of the 
streets of the town, passed on through it and took the 
road that led northward across a corner of Dyke’s hop 
fields. They were bound for the hills in the northeastern 
corner of Quien Sabe. It was the same walk which 
Presley had taken on the previous occasion when he had 
first met Vanamee herding the sheep. This encompass- 
ing detour around the whole country-side was a favorite 
pastime of his and he was anxious that Vanamee should 
share his pleasure in it. 

But soon after leaving Guadalajara, they found them- 
selves upon the land that Dyke had bought and upon 
which he was to raise his famous crop of hops. Dyke’s 
house was close at hand, a very pleasant little cottage, 
painted white, with green blinds and deep porches, while 
near it and yet in process of construction, were two great 
storehouses and a drying and curing house, where the 
hops were to be stored and treated. All about were evi- 
dences that the former engineer had already been hard at 
work. The ground had been put in readiness to receive 
the crop and a bewildering, innumerable multitude of 
poles, connected with a maze of wire and twine, had been 
set out. Farther on at a turn of the road, they came upon 
Dyke himself, driving a farm wagon loaded with more 
poles. He was in his shirt sleeves, his massive, hairy 
arms bare to the elbow, glistening with sweat, red with 
heat. In his bell-like, rumbling voice, he was calling to 
his foreman and a boy at work in stringing the poles 
together. At sight of Presley and Vanamee he hailed 
them jovially, addressing them as ''boys,” and insisting 
that they should get into the wagon with him and drive 
to the house for a glass of beer. His mother had only 
the day before returned from Marysville, where she had 
been looking up a seminary for the little tad. She would 
be delighted to see the two boys ; besides, Vanamee must 


219 


A Story of California 

see how the little tad had grown since he last set eyes on 
her ; wouldn’t know her for the same little girl ; and the 
beer had been on ice since morning. Presley and Vana- 
mee could not well refuse. 

They climbed into the wagon and jolted over the 
uneven ground through the bare forest of hop-poles to 
the house. Inside they found Mrs. Dyke, an old lady 
with a very gentle face, who wore a cap and a very old- 
fashioned gown with hoop skirts, dusting the what-not in 
a corner of the parlor. The two men were presented and 
the beer was had from off the ice. 

“ Mother,” said Dyke, as he wiped the froth from his 
great blond beard, “ ain’t Sid anywheres about ? I want 
Mr. Vanamee to see how she has grown. Smartest little 
tad in Tulare County, boys. Can recite the whole of 
" Snow Bound,’ end to end, without skipping or looking at 
the book. Maybe you don’t believe that. Mother, ain’t 
I right — without skipping a line, hey ? ” 

Mrs. Dyke nodded to say that it was so, but explained 
that Sidney was in Guadalajara. In putting on her new 
slippers for the first time the morning before, she had 
found a dime in the toe of one of them and had had the 
whole house by the ears ever since till she could spend it. 

^‘Was it for licorice to make her licorice water?” 
inquired Dyke gravely. 

'' Yes,” said Mrs. Dyke. “ I made her tell me what she 
was going to get before she went, and it was licorice.” 

Dyke, though his mother protested that he was foolish 
and that Presley and Vanamee had no great interest in 
young ones,” insisted upon showing the visitors Sidney’s 
copy-books. They were monuments of laborious, elabor- 
ate neatness, the trite moralities and ready-made aphor- 
isms of the philanthropists and publicists, repeated from 
page to page with wearying insistence. “ I, too, am an 
American Citizen. S. D./^ ‘‘As the Twig is Bent thq 


220 


The Octopus 

Tree is Inclined/’ Truth Crushed to Earth Will Rise 
Again,” *‘As for Me, Give Me Liberty or Give Me 
Death,” and last of all, a strange intrusion amongst the 
mild, well-worn phrases, two legends. ‘'My motto — 
Public Control of Public Franchises,” and “ The P. and 
S. W. is an Enemy of the State.” 

“ I see,” commented Presley, “ you mean the little tad 
to understand ‘ the situation ' early.” 

“ I told him he was foolish to give that to Sid to copy,” 
said Mrs. Dyke, with indulgent remonstrance. “ What 
can she understand of public franchises ? ” 

“ Never mind,” observed Dyke, “ she’ll remember it 
when she grows up and when the seminary people have 
rubbed her up a bit, and then she’ll begin to ask questions 
and understand. And don’t you make any mistake, 
mother,” he went on, “about the little tad not knowing 
who her dad’s enemies are. What do you think, boys? 
Listen, here. Precious little I’ve ever told her of the 
railroad or how I was turned off, but the other day I was 
working down by the fence next the railroad tracks and 
Sid was there. She’d brought her doll rags down and 
she was playing house behind a pile of hop poles. Well, 
along comes a through freight — mixed train from Mis- 
souri points and a string of empties from New Orleans, — ■ 
and when it had passed, what do you suppose the tad did ? 
She didn’t know I was watching her. She goes to the 
fence and spits a little spit after the caboose and puts out 
her little head and, if you’ll believe me, hisses at the 
train; and mother says she does that same every time 
she sees a train go by, and never crosses the tracks that 
she don’t spit her little spit on ’em. What do you think 
of that?*' 

“ But I correct her every time,” protested Mrs. Dyke 
seriously. “Where she picked up the trick of hissing I 
don’t know. No^ it’s not funny. It seems dreadful to 


221 


A Story of California 

see a little girl who’s as sweet and gentle as can be in 
every other way, so venomous. She says the other little 
girls at school and the boys, too, are all the same way. 
Oh, dear,” she sighed, ‘‘why will the General Office be 
so unkind and unjust? Why, I couldn’t be happy, with 
all the money in the world, if I thought that even one 
little child hated me — hated me so that it would spit and 
hiss at me. And it’s not one child, it’s all of them, so 
Sidney says ; and think of all the grown people who hate 
the road, women and men, the whole county, the whole 
State, thousands and thousands of people. Don’t the 
managers and the directors of the road ever think of 
that ? Don’t they ever think of all the hate that surrounds 
them, everywhere, everywhere, and the good people that 
just grit their teeth when the name of the road is men- 
tioned ? Why do they want to make the people hate them ? 
No,” she murmured, the tears starting to her eyes, “ No, 
I tell you, Mr. Presley, the men who own the railroad are 
wicked, bad-hearted men who don’t care how much the 
poor people suffer, so long as the road makes its eighteen 
million a year. They don’t care whether the people hate 
them or love them, just so long as they are afraid of 
them. It’s not right and God will punish them sooner or 
later.” 

A little after this the two young men took themselves 
away. Dyke obligingly carrying them in the wagon as far 
as the gate that opened into the Quien Sabe ranch. On 
the way, Presley referred to what Mrs. Dyke had said and 
led Dyke, himself, to speak of the P. and S. W. 

“ Well,” Dyke said, “ it’s like this, Mr. Presley. I, 
personally, haven’t got the right to kick. With you 
wheat-growing people I guess it’s different, but hops, you 
see, don’t count for much in the State. It’s such a little 
business that the road don’t want to bother themselves to 
tax it. It’s the wheat growers that the road cinches. 


222 


The Octopus 

The rates on hops are fair. Tve got to admit that ; I was 
in to Bonneville a while ago to find out. It's two cents a 
pound, and Lord love you, that's reasonable enough to 
suit any man. No," he concluded, '' I’m on the way to 
make money now. The road sacking me as they did 
was, maybe, a good thing for me, after all. It came just 
at the right time. I had a bit of money put by and here 
was the chance to go into hops with the certainty that 
hops would quadruple and quintuple in price inside the 
year. No, it was my chance, and though they didn’t 
mean it by a long chalk, the railroad people did me a 
good turn when they gave me my time — and the tad'll 
enter the seminary next fall." 

About a quarter of an hour after they had said good- 
bye to the one-time engineer, Presley and Vanamee, 
tramping briskly along the road that led northward 
through Quien Sabe, arrived at Annixter’s ranch house. 
At once they were aware of a vast and unwonted bustle 
that revolved about the place. They stopped a few 
moments looking on, amused and interested in what was 
going forward. 

The colossal barn was finished. Its freshly white- 
washed sides glared intolerably in the sun, but its interior 
was as yet innocent of paint and through the yawning 
vent of the sliding doors came a delicious odour of new, 
fresh wood and shavings. A crowd of men — Annixter's 
farm hands — were swarming all about it. Some were 
balanced on the topmost rounds of ladders, hanging fes- 
toons of Japanese lanterns from tree to tree, and all 
across the front of the barn itself. Mrs. Tree, her daugh- 
ter Hilma and another woman were inside the barn cut- 
ting into long strips bolt after bolt of red, white and blue 
cambric and directing how these strips should be draped 
from the ceiling and on the walls ; everywhere resounded 
the tapping of tack hammers. A farm wagon drove up 


223 


A Story of California 

loaded to overflowing with evergreens and with great 
bundles of palm leaves, and these were immediately 
seized upon and affixed as supplementary decorations to 
the tri-coloured cambric upon the inside walls of the barn. 
Two of the larger evergreen trees were placed on either 
side the barn door and their tops bent over to form an 
arch. In the middle of this arch it was proposed to hang 
a mammoth pasteboard escutcheon with gold letters, 
spelling the word Welcome. Piles of chairs, rented from 
1.0. 0.F. hall in Bonneville, heaped themselves in an ap- 
parently hopeless entanglement on the ground; while at 
the far extremity of the barn a couple of carpenters clat- 
tered about the impromptu staging which was to accom- 
modate the band. 

There was a strenuous gayety in the air; everybody 
was in the best of spirits. Notes of laughter continually 
interrupted the conversation on every hand. At every 
moment a group of men involved themselves in uproari- 
ous horse-play. They passed oblique jokes behind their 
hands to each other — grossly veiled double-meanings 
meant for the women — and bellowed with laughter 
thereat, stamping on the ground. The relations between 
the sexes grew more intimate, the women and girls push- 
ing the young fellows away from their sides with vigor- 
ous thrusts of their elbows. It was passed from group 
to group that Adela Vacca, a division superintendent’s 
wife, had lost her garter; the daughter of the foreman 
of the Home ranch was kissed behind the door of the 
dairy-house. 

Annixter, in execrable temper, appeared from time to 
time, hatless, his stiff yellow hair in wild disorder. He 
hurried between the barn and the ranch house, carrying 
now a wickered demijohn, now a case of wine, now a 
basket of lemons and pineapples. Besides general super- 
vision, he had elected to assume the responsibility of 


224 


The Octopus 

composing the punch — something stiff, by jingo, a punch 
that would raise you right out of your boots; a regular 
hairlifter. 

The harness room of the barn he had set apart for 
himself and intimates. He had brought a long table 
down from the house and upon it had set out boxes of 
cigars, bottles of whiskey and of beer and the great 
china bowls for the punch. It would be no fault of his, 
he declared, if half the number of his men friends were 
not uproarious before they left. His barn dance would 
be the talk of all Tulare County for years to come. For 
this one day he had resolved to put all thoughts of busi- 
ness out of his head. For the matter of that, things were 
going well enough. Osterman was back from Los An- 
geles with a favourable report as to his affair with Dis- 
brow and Darrell. There had been another meeting of 
the committee. Harran Derrick had attended. Though 
he had taken no part in the discussion, Annixtcr was 
satisfied. The Governor had consented to allow Harran 
to come in,” if he so desired, and Harran had pledged 
himself to share one-sixth of the campaign expenses, 
providing these did not exceed a certain figure. 

As Annixter came to the door of the barn to shout 
abuse at the distraught Chinese cook who was cutting up 
lemons in the kitchen, he caught sight of Presley and 
Vanamee and hailed them. 

“ Hello, Pres,” he called. Come over here and see 
how she looks ; ” he indicated the barn with a movement 
of his head. “Well, we’re getting ready for you to- 
night,” he went on as the two friends came up. “ But 
how we are going to get straightened out by eight o’clock 
I don’t know. Would you believe that pip Caraher is 
short of lemons — at this last minute and I told him I’d 
want three cases of ’em as much as a month ago, and 
here, just when I want a good lively saddle horse to get 


225 


A Story of California 

around on, somebody hikes the buckskin out the corral. 
Stole her, by jingo. Til have the law on that thief if it 
breaks me — and a sixty-dollar saddle 'n’ head-stall gone 
with her ; and only about half the number of Jap lanterns 
that I ordered have shown up and not candles enough for 
those. It’s enough to make a dog sick. There’s nothing 
done that you don’t do yourself, unless you stand over 
these loafers with a club. I’m sick of the whole business 
— and I’ve lost my hat; wish to God I’d never dreamed 
of givin’ this rotten fool dance. Clutter the whole place 
up with a lot of feemales. I sure did lose my presence of 
mind when I got that idea.” 

Then, ignoring the fact that it was he, himself, who 
had called the young men to him, he added : 

“ Well, this is my busy day. Sorry I can’t stop and 
talk to you longer.” 

He shouted a last imprecation at the Chinaman and 
turned back into the barn. Presley and Vanamee went 
on, but Annixter, as he crossed the floor of the barn, all 
but collided with Hilma Tree, who came out from one 
of the stalls, a box of candles in her arms. 

Gasping out an apology, Annixter reentered the har- 
ness room, closing the door behind him, and forgetting 
all the responsibility of the moment, lit a cigar and sat 
down in one of the hired chairs, his hands in his pockets, 
his feet on the table, frowning thoughtfully through the 
blue smoke. 

Annixter was at last driven to confess to himself that 
he could not get the thought of Hilma Tree out of his 
mind. Finally she had “ got a hold on him.” The thing 
that of all others he most dreaded had happened. A 
feemale girl had got a hold on him, and now there was 
no longer for him any such thing as peace of mind. The 
idea of the young woman was with him continually. He 
went to bed with it ; he got up with it. At every moment 


226 


The Octopus 


of the day he was pestered with it. It interfered with 
his work, got mixed up in his business. What a miser- 
able confession for a man to make ; a fine way to waste 
his time. Was it possible that only the other day he had 
stood in front of the music store in Bonneville and seri- 
ously considered making Hilma a present of a music- 
box? Even now, the very thought of it made him flush 
with shame, and this after she had told him plainly that 
she did not like him. He was running after her — he, 
Annixter! He ripped out a furious oath, striking the 
table with his boot heel. Again and again he had re- 
solved to put the whole affair from out his mind. Once 
he had been able to do so, but of late it was becoming 
harder and harder with every successive day. He had 
only to close his eyes to see her as plain as if she stood 
before him ; he saw her in a glory of sunlight that set a 
fine tinted lustre of pale carnation and gold on the silken 
sheen of her white skin, her hair sparkled with it, her 
thick, strong neck, sloping to her shoulders with beauti- 
ful, full curves, seemed to radiate the light; her eyes, 
brown, wide, innocent in expression, disclosing the full 
disc of the pupil upon the slightest provocation, flashed 
in this sunlight like diamonds. 

Annixter was all bewildered. With the exception of 
'^the timid little creature in the glove-cleaning establish- 
ment in Sacramento, he had had no acquaintance with 
any woman. His world was harsh, crude, a world of 
men only — men who were to be combatted, opposed — 
his hand was against nearly every one of them. Women 
he distrusted with the instinctive distrust of the overgrown 
schoolboy. Now, at length, a young woman had come 
into his life. Promptly he was struck with discomfiture, 
annoyed almost beyond endurance, harassed, bedevilled, 
excited, made angry and exasperated. He was suspicious 
of the woman, yet desired her, totally ignorant of how to 


A Story of California 227 

approach her, hating the sex, yet drawn to the individual, 
confusing the two emotions, sometimes even hating Hilma 
as a result of this confusion, but at all times disturbed, 
vexed, irritated beyond power of expression. 

At length, Annixter cast his cigar from him and 
plunged again into the work of the day. The afternoon 
wore to evening, to the accompaniment of wearying and 
clamorous endeavour. In some unexplained fashion, the 
labour of putting the great barn in readiness for the dance 
was accomplished ; the last bolt of cambric was hung in 
place from the rafters. The last evergreen tree was 
nailed to the joists of the walls; the last lantern hung, 
the last nail driven into the musicians’ platform. The 
sun set. There was a great scurry to have supper and 
dress. Annixter, last of all the other workers, left the 
barn in the dusk of twilight. He was alone; he had a 
saw under one arm, a bag of tools was in his hand. He 
was in his shirt sleeves and carried his coat over his 
shoulder; a hammer was thrust into one of his hip 
pockets. He was in execrable temper. The day’s work 
had fagged him out. He had not been able to find his hat. 

And the buckskin with sixty dollars’ worth of saddle 
gone, too,” he groaned. “ Oh, ain’t it sweet ? ” 

At his house, Mrs. Tree had set out a cold supper for 
him, the inevitable dish of prunes serving as dessert. 
After supper Annixter bathed and dressed. He decided 
at the last moment to wear his usual town-going suit, a 
sack suit of black, made by a Bonneville tailor. But his 
hat was gone. There were other hats he might have 
worn, but because this particular one was lost he fretted 
about it all through his dressing and then decided to have 
one more look around the barn for it. 

For over a quarter of an hour he pottered about the 
barn, going from stall to stall, rummaging the harness 
room and feed room, all to no purpose. At last he came 


228 


The Octopus 

out again upon the main floor, definitely giving up the 
search, looking about him to see if everything was in 
order. 

The festoons of Japanese lanterns in and around the 
barn were not yet lighted, but some half-dozen lamps, 
with great, tin reflectors, that hung against the walls, were 
burning low. A dull half light pervaded the vast interior, 
hollow, echoing, leaving the corners and roof thick with 
impenetrable black shadows. The barn faced the west 
and through the open sliding doors was streaming a single 
bright bar from the after-glow, incongruous and out of 
all harmony with the dull flare of the kerosene lamps. 

As Annixter glanced about him, he saw a figure step 
briskly out of the shadows of one corner of the building, 
pause for the fraction of one instant in the bar of light, 
then, at sight of him, dart back again. There was a 
sound of hurried footsteps. 

Annixter, with recollections of the stolen buckskin in 
his mind, cried out sharply: 

Who’s there?” 

There was no answer. In a second his pistol was in 
his hand. 

'‘Who’s there? Quick, speak up or I’ll shoot.” 

“ No, no, no, don’t shoot,” cried an answering voice. 
“ Oh, be careful. It’s I — Hilma Tree.” 

Annixter slid the pistol into his pocket with a great 
qualm of apprehension. He came forward and met 
Hilma in the doorway. 

“ Good Lord,” he murmured, “ that sure did give me a 
start. If I had shot ” 

Hilma stood abashed and confused before him. She 
was dressed in a white organdie frock of the most rigor- 
ous simplicity and wore neither flower nor ornament. 
The severity of her dress made her look even larger than 
usual, and even as it was her eyes were on a level with 


229 


A Story of Califomk 

Annixter^s. There was a certain fascination in the con- 
tradiction of stature and character of Hilma — a great 
girl, half-child as yet, but tall as a man for all that. 

There was a moment’s awkward silence, then Hilma 
explained : 

— I came back to look for my hat. I thought I left 
it here this afternoon.” 

‘‘And I was looking for my hat,” cried Annixter. 
“Funny enough, hey?” 

They laughed at this as heartily as children might have 
done. The constraint of the situation was a little relaxed 
and Annixter, with sudden directness, glanced sharply 
at the young woman and demanded : 

“ Well, Miss Hilma, hate me as much as ever?” 

“ Oh, no, sir,” she answered, “ I never said I hated 
you.” 

“ Well, — dislike me, then ; I know you said that.” 

“ I — I disliked what you did — tried to do. It made 
me angry and it hurt me. I shouldn’t have said what I 
did that time, but it was your fault.” 

“ You mean you shouldn’t have said you didn’t like 
me ? ” asked Annixter. “ Why ? ” 

“Well, well, — I don’t — I don’t dwlike anybody,” ad- 
mitted Hilma. 

“Then I can take it that you don’t dislike me? Is 
that it ? ” 

“ I don’t dislike anybody,” persisted Hilma. 

“ Well, I asked you more than that, didn’t I ? ” queried 
Annixter uneasily. “ I asked you to like me, remember, 
the other day. I’m asking you that again, now. I want 
you to like me.” 

Hilma lifted her eyes inquiringly to his. In her words 
was an unmistakable ring of absolute sincerity. Inno- 
cently she inquired: 

“ Why?” 


230 


The Octopus 

Annixter was struck speechless. In the face of such 
candour, such perfect ingenuousness, he was at a loss for 
any words. 

« Well— well,’’ he stammered, ‘‘well— I don’t know,” 
he suddenly burst out. “ That is,” he went on, groping 
for his wits, “I can’t quite say why.” The idea of a 
colossal lie occurred to him, a thing actually royal. 

“ I like to have the people who are around me like me,” 
he declared. “I — I like to be popular, understand? 
Yes, that’s it,” he continued, more reassured. “ I don’t 
like the idea of any one disliking me. That’s the way I 
am. It’s my nature.” 

“Oh, then,” returned Hilma, “you needn’t bother. 
No, I don’t dislike you.” 

“Well, that’s good,” declared Annixter judicially. 
“ That’s good. But hold on,” he interrupted, “ I’m for- 
getting. It’s not enough to not dislike me. I want you 
to like me. How about that?'' 

Hilma paused for a moment, glancing vaguely out of 
the doorway toward the lighted window of the dairy- 
house, her head tilted. 

“I don’t know that I ever thought about that,” she 
said. 

“ Well, think about it now,” insisted Annixter. 

“ But I never thought about liking anybody particu- 
larly,” she observed. “It’s because I like everybody, 
don’t you see?” 

“ Well, you’ve got to like some people more than other 
people,” hazarded Annixter, “ and I want to be one of 
those ‘ some people,’ savvy? Good Lord, I don’t know 
how to say these fool things. I talk like a galoot when I 
get talking to feemale girls and I can’t lay my tongue to 
anything that sounds right. It isn’t my nature. And 
look here, I lied when I said I liked to have people like 
me — to be popular. Rotl I don’t care a curse about 


231 


A Story of California 

people’s opinions of me. But there’s a few people that 
are more to me than most others— that chap Presley, for 
instance — and those people I do^-wkni to have like me. 
What they think counts. Pshaw! I know I’ve got 
enemies ; piles of them. I could name you half a dozen 
men right now that are naturally itching to take a shot 
at me. How about this ranch? Don’t I know, can’t I 
hear the men growling oaths under their breath after 
I’ve gone by? And in business ways, too,” he went on, 
speaking half to himself, “ in Bonneville and all over the 
county there’s not a man of them wouldn’t howl for joy 
if they got a chance to down Buck Annixter. Think I 
care? Why, I like it. I run my ranch to suit myself 
and I play my game my own way. I’m a ' driver,’ I 
know it, and a ‘ bully,’ too. Oh, I know what they call 
me — ' a brute beast, with a twist in my temper that would 
rile up a new-born lamb,’ and I’m ^crusty’ and * pig- 
headed ’ and ‘ obstinate.’ They say all that, but they’ve 
got to say, too, that I’m cleverer than any man- jack in 
the running. There’s nobody can get ahead of me.” His 
eyes snapped. “ Let ’em grind their teeth. They can’t 
‘ down ’ me. When I shut my fist there’s not one of 
them can open it. No, not with a chisel” He turned to 
Hilma again. Well, when a man’s hated as much as 
that, it stands to reason, don’t it. Miss Hilma, that the 
few friends he has got he wants to keep? I’m not such 
an entire swine to the people that know me best — that 
jackass, Presley, for instance. I’d put my hand in the 
fire to do him a real service. Sometimes I get kind of 
lonesome; wonder if you would understand? It’s my 
fault, but there’s not a horse about the place that don’t 
lay his ears back when I get on him; there’s not a dog 
don’t put his tail between his legs as soon as I come near 
him. The cayuse isn’t foaled yet here on Quien Sabe that 
can throw me, nor the dog whelped that would dare show 


The Octopus 


232 

his teeth at me. I kick that Irish setter every time I 
see him — ^but wonder what Fd do, though, if he didn’t 
slink so much, if he wagged his tail and was glad to see 
me? So it all comes to this: I’d like to have you — well, 
sort of feel that I was a good friend of yours and like 
me because of it.” 

The flame in the lamp on the wall in front of Hilma 
stretched upward tall and thin and began to smoke. She 
went over to where the lamp hung and, standing on tip- 
toe, lowered the wick. As she reached her hand up, 
Annixter noted how the sombre, lurid red of the lamp 
made a warm reflection on her smooth, round arm. 

“ Do you understand ? ” he queried. 

“ Yes, why, yes,” she answered, turning around. It’s 
very good of you to want to be a friend of mine. I 
didn’t think so, though, when you tried to kiss me. But 
maybe it’s all right since you’ve explained things. You 
see I’m different from you. I like everybody to like me 
and I like to like everybody. It makes one so much 
happier. You wouldn’t believe it, but you ought to try 
it, sir, just to see. It’s so good to be good to people and 
to have people good to you. And everybody has always 
been so good to me. Mamma and papa, of course, and 
Billy, the stableman, and Montalegre, the Portugee fore- 
man, and the Chinese cook, even, and Mr. Delaney — only 
he went away — and Mrs. Vacca and her little ” 

'' Delaney, hey? ” demanded Annixter abruptly. You 
and he were pretty good friends, were you?” 

Oh, yes,” she answered. “ He was just as good to 
me. Every day in the summer time he used to ride over 
to the Seed ranch back of the Mission and bring me a 
great armful of flowers, the prettiest things, and I used 
to pretend to pay him for them with dollars made of 
cheese that I cut out of the cheese with a biscuit cutten 
It was such fun. We were the best of friends^” 


233 


A Story of California 

There’s another lamp smoking,” growled Annixter. 

Turn it down, will you? — and see that somebody sweeps 
this floor here. It’s all littered up with pine needles. 
I’ve got a lot to do. Good-bye.” 

Good-bye, sir.” 

Annixter returned to the ranch house, his teeth 
clenched, enraged, his face flushed. 

“Ah,” he muttered, “Delaney, hey? Throwing it up 
to me that I fired him.” His teeth gripped together 
more fiercely than ever. “ The best of friends, hey ? By 
God, I’ll have that girl yet. I’ll show that cow-puncher. 
Ain’t I her employer, her boss? I’ll show her — and 
Delaney, too. It would be easy enough — and then De- 
laney can have her — if he wants her — after me.” 

An evil light flashing from under his scowl, spread 
over his face. The male instincts of possession, unrea- 
soned, treacherous, oblique, came twisting to the surface. 
All the lower nature of the man, ignorant of women, 
racked at one and the same time with enmity and desire, 
roused itself like a hideous and abominable beast. And 
at the same moment, Hilma returned to her house, hum- 
ming to herself as she walked, her white dress glowing 
with a shimmer of faint saffron light in the last ray of 
the after-glow. 

A little after half-past seven, the first carry-all, bearing 
the druggist of Bonneville and his women-folk, arrived 
in front of the new barn. Immediately afterward an 
express wagon loaded down with a swarming family of 
Spanish-Mexicans, gorgeous in red and yellow colours, 
followed. Billy, the stableman, and his assistant took 
charge of the teams, unchecking the horses and hitching 
them to a fence back of the barn. Then Caraher, the 
saloon-keeper, in “derby” hat, “Prince Albert” coat, 
pointed yellow shoes and inevitable red necktie, drove 
into the yard on his buckboard, the delayed box of 


234 


The Octopus 


lemons under the seat. It looked as if the whole array 
of invited guests was to arrive in one unbroken proces- 
sion, but for a long half-hour nobody else appeared. 
Annixter and Caraher withdrew to the harness room and 
promptly involved themselves in a wrangle as to the 
make-up of the famous punch. From time to time their 
voices could be heard uplifted in clamorous argument. 

“ Two quarts and a half and a cupful of chartreuse.” 

“ Rot, rot, I know better. Champagne straight and a 
dash of brandy.” 

The druggist’s wife and sister retired to the feed room, 
where a bureau with a swinging mirror had been placed 
for the convenience of the women. The druggist stood 
awkwardly outside the door of the feed room, his coat 
collar turned up against the draughts that drifted through 
the barn, his face troubled, debating anxiously as to the 
propriety of putting on his gloves. The Spanish-Mexi- 
can family, a father, mother and five children and sister- 
in-law, sat rigid on the edges of the hired chairs, silent, 
constrained, their eyes lowered, their elbows in at their 
sides, glancing furtively from under their eyebrows at 
the decorations or watching with intense absorption 
young Vacca, son of one of the division superintendents, 
who wore a checked coat and white thread gloves and 
who paced up and down the length of the barn, frowning, 
very important, whittling a wax candle over the floor to 
make it slippery for dancing. 

The musicians arrived, the City Band of Bonneville — 
Annixter having managed to offend the leader of the 
“ Dirigo ” Club orchestra, at the very last moment, to 
such a point that he had refused his services. These 
members of the City Band repaired at once to their plat- 
form in the corner. At every instant they laughed up- 
roariously among themselves, joshing one of their num- 
ber, a Frenchman, whom they called “ Skeezicks.” Their 


^35 


A Story of California 

hilarity reverberated in a hollow, metallic roll among the 
rafters overhead. The druggist observed to young 
Vacca as he passed by that he thought them pretty fresh, 
just the same. 

“ Tm busy, Fm very busy,'’ returned the young man, 
continuing on his way, still frowning and paring the 
stump of candle. 

“ Two quarts ’n' a half. Two quarts 'n' a half." 

'' Ah, yes, in a way, that’s so ; and then, again, in a way, 
it isn't. I know better.’’ 

All along one side of the barn were a row of stalls, 
fourteen of them, clean as yet, redolent of new cut wood, 
the sawdust still in the cracks of the flooring. Deliber- 
ately the druggist went from one to the other, pausing 
contemplatively before each. He returned down the line 
and again took up his position by the door of the feed 
room, nodding his head judicially, as if satisfled. He 
decided to put on his gloves. 

By now it was quite dark. Outside, between the barn 
and the ranch houses one could see a group of men on 
step-ladders lighting the festoons of Japanese lanterns. 
In the darkness, only their faces appeared here and there, 
high above the ground, seen in a haze of red, strange, 
grotesque. Gradually as the multitude of lanterns were 
lit, the light spread. The grass underfoot looked like 
green excelsior. Another group of men invaded the 
barn itself, lighting the lamps and lanterns there. Soon 
the whole place was gleaming with points of light. 
Young Vacca, who had disappeared, returned with his 
pockets full of wax candles. He resumed his whittling, 
refusing to answer any questions, vociferating that he 
was busy. 

Outside there was a sound of hoofs and voices. More 
guests had arrived. The druggist, seized with confusion, 
terrified lest he had put on his gloves too soon, thrust his 


^36 The Octopus 

hands into his pockets. It was Cutter, Magnus Derrick^s 
division superintendent, who came, bringing his wife and 
her two girl cousins. They had come fifteen miles by 
the trail from the far distant division house on “ Four 
of Los Muertos and had ridden on horseback instead of 
driving. Mrs. Cutter could be heard declaring that she 
was nearly dead and felt more like going to bed than 
dancing. The two girl cousins, in dresses of dotted 
Swiss over blue sateen, were doing their utmost to pacify 
her. She could be heard protesting from moment to 
moment. One distinguished the phrases “ straight to my 
bed,’^ back nearly broken in two,” “ never wanted to 
come in the first place.” The druggist, observing Cut- 
ter take a pair of gloves from Mrs. Cutter’s reticule, 
drew his hands from his pockets. 

But abruptly there was an interruption. In the musi- 
cians’ corner a scuffle broke out. A chair was over- 
turned. There was a noise of imprecations mingled 
with shouts of derision. Skeezicks, the Frenchman, had 
turned upon the joshers. 

“ Ah, no,” he was heard to exclaim, at the end of the 
end it is too much. Kind of a bad canary — we will go to 
see about that. Aha, let him close up his face before I 
demolish it with a good stroke of the fist.” 

The men who were lighting the lanterns were obliged 
to intervene before he could be placated. 

Hooven and his wife and daughters arrived. Minna 
was carrying little Hilda, already asleep, in her arms. 
Minna looked very pretty, striking even, with her black 
hair, pale face, very red lips and greenish-blue eyes. 
She was dressed in what had been Mrs. Hooven’s wed- 
ding gown, a cheap affair of “ farmer’s satin.” Mrs. 
Hooven had pendent earrings of imitation jet in her 
ears. Hooven was wearing an old frock coat of Magnus 
Derrick’s, the sleeves too long, the shoulders absurdly too 


A Story of California 237 

wide. He and Cutter at once entered into an excited 
conversation as to the ownership of a certain steer. 

'‘Why, the brand 

“Ach, Gott, der brendt,’' Hooven clasped his head, 
“ ach, der brendt, dot maks me laugh some laughs. 
Dot’s goot — der brendt — doand I see um — shoor der 
boole mit der bleck star bei der vore-head in der middle 
oaf. Any sonieones you esk tell you dot is mein boole. 
You esk any sonieones. Der brendt? To hell mit der 
brendt. You aindt got some memorie aboudt does ting 
I guess nodt.” 

“ Please step aside, gentlemen,” said young Vacca, 
who was still making the rounds of the floor. 

Hooven whirled about. “ Eh ? What den,” he ex- 
claimed, still excited, willing to be angry at any one for 
the moment. “ Doand you push soh, you. I tink ber- 
hapz you doand own dose barn, hey ? ” 

“ Pm busy, Pm very busy.” The young man pushed 
by with grave preoccupation. 

“ Two quarts ’n’ a half. Two quarts ’n’ a half.” 

“ I know better. That’s all rot.” 

But the barn was filling up rapidly. At every mo- 
ment there was a rattle of a newly arrived vehicle from 
outside. Guest after guest appeared in the doorway, 
singly or in couples, or in families, or in garrulous 
parties of five and six. Now it was Phelps and his 
mother from Los Muertos, now a foreman from Broder- 
son’s with his family, now a gayly apparelled clerk from 
a Bonneville store, solitary and bewildered, looking for 
a place to put his hat, now a couple of Spanish-Mexican 
girls from Guadalajara with coquettish effects of black 
and yellow about their dress, now a group of Osterman’s 
tenants, Portuguese, swarthy, with plastered hair and 
curled mustaches, redolent of cheap perfumes. Sarria 
arrived, his smooth, shiny face glistening with perspira- 


238 


The Octopus 


tion. He wore a new cassock and carried his broad- 
brimmed hat under his arm. His appearance made quite 
a stir. He passed from group to group, urbane, affable, 
shaking hands right and left ; he assumed a set smile of 
amiability which never left his face the whole evening. 

But abruptly there was a veritable sensation. From 
out the little crowd that persistently huddled about the 
doorway came Osterman. He wore a dress-suit with a 
white waistcoat and patent leather pumps — what a won- 
der! A little qualm of excitement spread around the 
barn. One exchanged nudges of the elbow with one’s 
neighbour, whispering earnestly behind the hand. What 
astonishing clothes ! Catch on to the coat-tails I It was 
a masquerade costume, maybe; that goat Osterman was 
such a josher, one never could tell what he would do 
next. 

The musicians began to tune up. From their corner 
came a medley of mellow sounds, the subdued chirps of 
the violins, the dull bourdon of the bass viol, the liquid 
gurgling of the flageolet and the deep-toned snarl of the 
big horn, with now and then a rasping stridulating of the 
snare drum. A sense of gayety began to spread through- 
out the assembly. At every moment the crowd increased. 
The aroma of new-sawn timber and sawdust began to be 
mingled with the feminine odour of sachet and flowers. 
There was a babel of talk in the air — male baritone and 
soprano chatter — ^varied by an occasional note of laugh- 
ter and the swish of stiffly starched petticoats. On the 
row of chairs that went around three sides of the wall 
groups began to settle themselves. For a long time the 
guests huddled close to the doorway; the lower end of 
the floor was crowded, the upper end deserted ; but by de- 
grees the lines of white muslin and pink and blue sateen 
extended, dotted with the darker figures of men in black 
suit?. The conversation grew louder as the timidity of 


239 


A Story of California 

the early moments wore off. Groups at a distance called 
back and forth; conversations were carried on at top 
voice. Once, even a whole party hurried across the 
floor from one side of the barn to the other. 

Annixter emerged from the harness room, his face red 
with wrangling. He took a position to the right of the 
door, shaking hands with newcomers, inviting them over 
and over again to cut loose and whoop it along. Into 
the ears of his more intimate male acquaintances he 
dropped a word as to punch and cigars in the harness 
room later on, winking with vast intelligence. 

Ranchers from remoter parts of the country appeared : 
Garnett, from the Ruby rancho, Keast, from the ranch 
of the same name, Gethings, of the San Pablo, Chattern, 
of the Bonanza, and others and still others, a score of 
them — elderly men, for the most part, bearded, slow of 
speech, deliberate, dressed in broadcloth. Old Broder- 
son, who entered with his wife on his arm, fell in with 
this type, and with them came a certain Dabney, of 
whom nothing but his name was known, a silent old 
man, who made no friends, whom nobody knew or spoke 
to, who was seen only upon such occasions as this, coming 
from no one knew where, going, no one cared to inquire 
whither. 

Between eight and half-past, Magnus Derrick and his 
family were seen. Magnus’s entry caused no little im- 
pression. Some said : There’s the Governor,” and called 
their companions’ attention to the thin, erect figure, com- 
manding, imposing, dominating all in his immediate 
neighbourhood. Harran came with him, wearing a cut- 
away suit of black. He was undeniably handsome, young 
and fresh looking, his cheeks highly coloured, quite the 
finest looking of all the younger men; blond, strong, 
with that certain courtliness of manner that had always 
made him liked. He took his mother upon his arm 


240 The Octopus 

and conducted her to a seat by the side of Mrs. 
Broderson. 

Annie Derrick was very pretty that evening. She 
was dressed in a grey silk gown with a collar of pink 
velvet. Her light brown hair that yet retained so much 
of its brightness was transfixed by a high, shell comb, 
very Spanish. But the look of uneasiness in her large 
eyes — the eyes of a young girl — was deepening every 
day. The expression of innocence and inquiry which 
they so easily assumed, was disturbed by a faint sugges- 
tion of aversion, almost of terror. She settled herself in 
her place, in the corner of the hall, in the rear rank of 
chairs, a little frightened by the glare of lights, the hum 
of talk and the shifting crowd, glad to be out of the 
way, to attract no attention, willing to obliterate herself. 

All at once Annixter, who had just shaken hands with 
Dyke, his mother and the little tad, moved abruptly in 
his place, drawing in his breath sharply. The crowd 
around the great, wide-open main door of the barn had 
somewhat thinned out and in the few groups that still 
remained there he had suddenly recognised Mr. and 
Mrs. Tree and Hilma, making their way towards some 
empty seats near the entrance of the feed room. 

In the dusky light of the bam earlier in the evening, 
Annixter had not been able to see Hilma plainly. Now, 
however, as she passed before his eyes in the glittering 
radiance of the lamps and lanterns, he caught his breath 
in astonishment. Never had she appeared more beautiful 
in his eyes. It did not seem possible that this was the 
same girl whom he saw every day in and around the 
ranch house and dairy, the girl of simple calico frocks 
and plain shirt waists, who brought him his dinner, who 
made up his bed. Now he could not take his eyes from 
her. Hilma, for the first time, was wearing her hair 
done high upon her head. The thick, sweet-smelling 


241 


A Story of California 

masses, bitumen brown in the shadows, corruscated like 
golden filaments in the light. Her organdie frock was 
long, longer than any she had yet worn. It left a little 
of her neck and breast bare and all of her arm. 

Annixter muttered an exclamation. Such arms ! How 
did she manage to keep them hid on ordinary occasions. 
Big at the shoulder, tapering with delicious modulations 
to the elbow and wrist, overlaid with a delicate, gleaming 
lustre. As often as she turned her head the movement 
sent a slow undulation over her neck and shoulders, the 
pale amber-tinted shadows under her chin, coming and 
going over the creamy whiteness of the skin like the 
changing moire of silk. The pretty rose colour of her 
cheek had deepened to a pale carnation. Annixter, his 
hands clasped behind him, stood watching. 

In a few moments Hilma was surrounded by a group 
of young men, clamouring for dances. They came from 
all corners of the barn, leaving the other girls precipi- 
tately, almost rudely. There could be little doubt as to 
who was to be the belle of the occasion. Hilma's little 
triumph was immediate, complete. Annixter could hear 
her voice from time to time, its usual velvety huskiness 
vibrating to a note of exuberant gayety. 

All at once the orchestra swung off into a march — ^the 
Grand March. There was a great rush to secure 
partners.” Young Vacca, still going the rounds, was 
pushed to one side. The gayly apparelled clerk from the 
Bonneville store lost his head in the confusion. He could 
not find his “partner.” He roamed wildly about the 
barn, bewildered, his eyes rolling. He resolved to _ pre- 
pare an elaborate programme card on the back of an old 
envelope. Rapidly the line was formed, Hilma and Har- 
ran Derrick in the lead, Annixter having obstinately re- 
fused to engage in either march, set or dance the whole 
evening. Soon the confused shuffling of feet settled to a 


242 


The Octopus 

measured cadence; the orchestra blared and wailed, the 
snare drum, rolling at exact intervals, the cornet mark- 
ing the time. It was half-past eight o’clock. 

Annixter drew a long breath : 

“ Good,” he muttered, “ the thing is under way at last.” 

Singularly enough, Osterman also refused to dance. 
The week before he had returned from Los Angeles, 
bursting with the importance of his mission. He had 
been successful. He had Disbrow “ in his pocket.” He' 
was impatient to pose before the others of the committee 
as a skilful political agent, a manipulator. He forgot 
his attitude of the early part of the evening when he had 
drawn attention to himself with his wonderful clothes. 
Now his comic actor’s face, with its brownish-red cheeks, 
protuberant ears and horizontal slit of a mouth, was 
overcast with gravity. His bald forehead was seamed 
with the wrinkles of responsibility. He drew Annixter 
into one of the empty stalls and began an elaborate ex- 
planation, glib, voluble, interminable, going over again 
in detail what he had reported to the committee in outline. 

*•1 managed — I schemed — I kept dark — 1 lay 
low ” 

But Annixter refused to listen. 

Oh, rot your schemes. There’s a punch in the har- 
ness room that will make the hair grow on the top of your 
head in the place where the hair ought to grow. Come 
on, we’ll round up some of the boys and walk into it.” 

They edged their way around the hall outside “ The 
Grand March,” toward the harness room, picking up on 
their way Caraher, Dyke, Hooven and old Broderson. 
Once in the harness room, Annixter shot the bolt. 

” That affair outside,” he observed, “ will take care of 
itself, but here’s a little orphan child that gets lonesome 
without company.” 

Annixter began ladling the punch, filling the glasses. 


243 


A Story of California 

Osterman proposed a toast to Quien Sabe and the 
Biggest Bam. Their elbows crooked in silence. Old 
Broderson set down his glass, wiping his long beard and 
remarking : 

“ That — that certainly is very — very agreeable. I re- 
member a punch I drank on Christmas day in ’83, or no, 
it was ’84 — anyhow, that punch — it was in Ukiah — ’twas 
^83 — ” He wandered on aimlessly, unable to stop his 
flow of speech, losing himself in details, involving his 
talk in a hopeless maze of trivialities to which nobody 
paid any attention. 

“I don’t drink myself,” observed Dyke, “but just a 
taste of that with a lot of w^ater wouldn’t be bad for the 
little tad. She’d think it was lemonade.” He was about 
to mix a glass for Sidney, but thought better of it at the 
last moment. 

“ It’s the chartreuse that’s lacking,” commented Cara- 
her, lowering at Annixter. The other flared up on the 
instant. 

“ Rot, rot. I know better. In some punches it goes ; 
and then, again, in others it don’t.” 

But it was left to Hooven to launch the successful 
phrase : 

“ Gesundheit/' he exclaimed, holding out his second 
glass. After drinking, he replaced it on the table with a 
long breath. “ Ach Gott ! ” he cried, “ dat poonsch, say 
I tink dot poonsch mek some demn goot vertilizer, hey ? ” 

Fertiliser! The others roared with laughter. 

“ Good eye, Bismarck,” commented Annixter. The 
name had a great success. Thereafter throughout the 
evening the punch was invariably spoken of as the “ Fer- 
tiliser.” Osterman, having spilt the bottom of a glassful 
on the floor, pretended that he saw shoots of grain com- 
ing up on the spot. Suddenly he turned upon old 
Broderson. 


244 


The Octopus 

Fm bald, ain't I ? Want to know how 1 lost my 
hair? Promise you won't ask a single other question 
and Fll tell you. Promise your word of honour." 

“Eh? What — wh — I — I don't understand. Your 
hair? Yes, Fll promise. How did you lose it?" 

“ It was bit off." 

The other gazed at him stupefied; his jaw dropped. 
The company shouted, and old Broderson, believing he 
had somehow accomplished a witticism, chuckled in his 
beard, wagging his head. But suddenly he fell grave, 
struck with an idea. He demanded : 

“ Yes — I know — but — ^but what bit it off ? " 

“Ah," vociferated Osterman, “that’s just what you 
promised not to ask." 

The company doubled up with hilarity. Caraher 
leaned against the door, holding his sides, but Hooven, 
all abroad, unable to follow, gazed from face to face with 
a vacant grin, thinking it was still a question of his 
famous phrase. 

“Vertilizer, hey? Dots some fine joke, hey? You 
bedt." 

What with the noise of their talk and laughter, it was 
some time before Dyke, first of all, heard a persistent 
knocking on the bolted door. He called Annixter’s at- 
tention to the sound. Cursing the intruder, Annixter 
unbolted and opened the door. But at once his manner 
changed. 

“ Hello. It's Presley. Come in, come in. Pres." 

There was a shout of welcome from the others. A 
spirit of effusive cordiality had begun to dominate the 
gathering. Annixter caught sight of Vanamee back of 
Presley, and waiving for the moment the distinction of 
employer and employee, insisted that both the friends 
should come in. 

“Any friend of Pres is my friend," he declared. 


A Story of California 245 

But when the two had entered and had exchanged 
greetings, Presley drew Annixter aside. 

“ Vanamee and I have just come from Bonneville,” he 
explained. We saw Delaney there. He’s got the buck- 
skin, and he’s full of bad whiskey and dago-red. You 
should see him; he’s wearing all his cow-punching out- 
fit, hair trousers, sombrero, spurs and all the rest of it, 
and he has strapped himself to a big revolver. He says 
he wasn’t invited to your barn dance but that he’s coming 
over to shoot up the place. He says you promised to 
show him off Quien Sabe at the toe of your boot and 
that he’s going to give you the chance to-night ! ” 

Ah,” commented Annixter, nodding his head, he is, 
is he?” 

Presley was disappointed. Knowing Annixter ’s iras- 
cibility, he had expected to produce a more dramatic 
effect. He began to explain the danger of the business. 
Delaney had once knifed a greaser in the Panamint 
country. He was known as a bad ” man. But Annix- 
ter refused to be drawn. 

'' All right,” he said, '' that’s all right. Don’t tell any- 
body else. You might scare the girls off. Get in and 
drink.” 

Outside the dancing was by this time in full swing. 
The orchestra was playing a polka. Young Vacca, now 
at his fiftieth wax candle, had brought the floor to the 
slippery surface of glass. The druggist was dancing 
with one of the Spanish-Mexican girls with the solemnity 
of an automaton, turning about and about, always in the 
same direction, his eyes glassy, his teeth set. Hilma Tree 
was dancing for the second time with Harran Derrick. 
She danced with infinite grace. Her cheeks were bright 
red, her eyes half-closed, and through her parted lips she 
drew from time to time a long, tremulous breath of pure 
delight. The music, the weaving colours, the heat of the 


246 


The Octopus 


air, by now a little oppressive, the monotony of repeated 
sensation, even the pain of physical fatigue had exalted 
all her senses. She was in a dreamy lethargy of happi- 
ness. It was her “first ball.” She could have danced 
without stopping until morning. Minna Hooven and Cut- 
ter were “ promenading.” Mrs. Hooven, with little Hilda 
already asleep on her knees, never took her eyes from 
her daughter’s gown. As often as Minna passed near 
her she vented an energetic “ pst ! pst ! ” The metal tip 
of a white draw string was showing from underneath the 
waist of Minna’s dress. Mrs. Hooven was on the point 
of tears. 

The solitary gayly apparelled clerk from Bonneville 
was in a fever of agitation. He had lost his elaborate 
programme card. Bewildered, beside himself with trepi- 
dation, he hurried about the room, jostled by the dancing 
couples, tripping over the feet of those who were seated ; 
he peered distressfully under the chairs and about the 
floor, asking anxious questions. 

Magnus Derrick, the centre of a listening circle of 
ranchers — Garnett from the Ruby rancho, Keast from 
the ranch of the same name, Gethings and Chattern of 
the San Pablo and Bonanza — stood near the great open 
doorway of the barn, discussing the possibility of a 
shortage in the world’s wheat crop for the next year. 

Abruptly the orchestra ceased playing with a roll of 
the snare drum, a flourish of the cornet and a prolonged 
growl of the bass viol. The dance broke up, the couples 
hurrying to their seats, leaving the gayly apparelled clerk 
suddenly isolated in the middle of the floor, rolling his 
eyes. The druggist released the Spanish-Mexican girl 
with mechanical precision out amidst the crowd of 
dancers. He bowed, dropping his chin upon his cravat ; 
throughout the dance neither had hazarded a word. The 
girl found her way alone to a chair, but the druggist. 


A Story of California 


247 


sick from continually revolving in the same direction, 
walked unsteadily toward the wall. All at once the barn 
reeled around him; he fell down. There was a great 
laugh, but he scrambled to his feet and disappeared 
abruptly out into the night through the doorway of the 
barn, deathly pale, his hand upon his stomach. 

Dabney, the old man whom nobody knew, approached 
the group of ranchers around Magnus Derrick and stood, 
a little removed, listening gravely to what the governor 
was saying, his chin sunk in his collar, silent, offering 
• no opinions. 

But the leader of the orchestra, with a great gesture of 
his violin bow, cried out: 

“ All take partners for the lancers and promenade 
around the hall ! '' 

However, there was a delay. A little crowd formed 
around the musicians’ platform ; voices were raised ; there 
was a commotion. Skeezicks, who played the big horn, 
accused the cornet and the snare-drum of stealing his 
cold lunch. At intervals he could be heard expostu- 
lating : 

“Ah, no! at the end of the end! Render me the 
sausages, you, or less I break your throat ! Aha ! I know 
you. You are going to play me there a bad farce. My 
sausages and the pork sandwich, else I go away from 
this plac6 ! ” 

He made an exaggerated show of replacing his big 
horn in its case, but the by-standers raised a great pro- 
test. The sandwiches and one sausage were produced; 
the other had disappeared. In the end Skeezichs allowed 
himself to be appeased. The dance was resumed. 

Half an hour later the gathering in the harness room 
was considerably reinforced. It was the corner of the 
barn toward which the male guests naturally gravitated. 
Harran Derrick, who only cared to dance with Hilma 


248 


The Octopus 

Tree, was admitted. Garnett from the Ruby rancho and 
Gethings from the San Pablo, came in a little afterwards. 
A fourth bowl of punch was mixed, Annixter and Car- 
aher clamouring into each other’s face as to its ingre- 
dients. Cigars were lighted. Soon the air of the room 
became blue with an acrid haze of smoke. It was very 
warm. Ranged in their chairs around the side of the 
room, the guests emptied glass after glass. 

Vanamee alone refused to drink. He sat a little to 
one side, disassociating himself from what was going 
forward, watching the others calmly, a little contemptu- 
ously, a cigarette in his fingers. 

Hooven, after drinking his third glass, however, was 
afflicted with a great sadness; his breast heaved with 
immense sighs. He asserted that he was “ obbressed ; ” 
Cutter had taken his steer. He retired to a corner and 
seated himself in a heap on his chair, his heels on the 
rungs, wiping the tears from his eyes, refusing to be com- 
forted. 

Old Broderson startled Annixter^ who sat next to him, 
out of all measure by suddenly winking at him with 
infinite craftiness. 

“ When I was a lad in Ukiah,” he whispered hoarsely, 
'' I was a devil of a fellow with the girls ; but Lordy ! ” 
he nudged him slyly, “ I wouldn’t have it known ! ” 

Of those who were drinking, Annixter alone retained 
all his wits. Though keeping pace with the others, glass 
for glass, the punch left him solid upon his feet, clear- 
headed. The tough, cross-grained fibre of him seemed 
proof against alcohol. Never in his life had he been 
drunk. He prided himself upon his power of resistance. 
It was his nature. 

** Say ! ” exclaimed old Broderson, gravely addressing 
the company, pulling at his beard uneasily — say ! I — I 
— listen! I’m a devil of a fellow with the girls.” He 


A Story of California 


249 


wagged his head doggedly, shutting his eyes in a know- 
ing fashion. Yes, sir, I am. There was a young lady 
in Ukiah — ^that was when I was a lad of seventeen. We 
used to meet in the cemetery in the afternoons. I was 
to go away to school at Sacramento, and the afternoon 
I left we met in the cemetery and we stayed so long I 
almost missed the train. Her name was Celestine.’’ 

There was a pause. The others waited for the rest of 
the story. 

“And afterwards ? prompted Annixter. 

“ Afterwards ? Nothing afterwards. I never saw her 
again. Her name was Celestine.^’ 

The company raised a chorus of derision, and Oster- 
man cried ironically: 

“ Say ! thafs a pretty good one ! Tell us another.” 

The old man laughed with the rest, believing he had 
made another hit. He called Osterman to him, whisper- 
ing in his ear: 

“ Sh 1 Look here ! Some night you and I will go up 
to San Francisco — hey? We’ll go skylarking. We’ll be 
gay. Oh, I’m a — a — a rare old buck, I am ! I ain’t too 
old. You’ll see.” 

Annixter gave over the making of the fifth bowl of 
punch to Osterman, who affirmed that he had a recipe 
for a “ fertiliser ” from Solotari that would take the 
plating off the ladle. He left him wrangling with Car- 
aher, who still persisted in adding chartreuse, and stepped 
out into the dance to see how things were getting on. 

It was the interval between two dances. In and around 
a stall at the farther end of the floor, where lemonade 
was being served, was a great throng of young men. 
Others hurried across the floor singly or by twos and 
threes, gingerly carrying overflowing glasses to their 
“partners,” sitting in long rows of white and blue and 
pink against the opposite wall, their mothers and older 


250 


The Octopus 


sisters in a second dark-clothed rank behind them. A 
babel of talk was in the air, mingled with gusts of 
laughter. Everybody seemed having a good time. In 
the increasing heat the decorations of evergreen trees 
and festoons threw off a pungent aroma that suggested 
a Sunday-school Christmas festival. In the other stalls, 
lower down the barn, the young men had brought chairs, 
and in these deep recesses the most desperate love-making 
was in progress, the young man, his hair neatly parted, 
leaning with great solicitation over the girl, his “ part- 
ner” for the moment, fanning her conscientiously, his 
arm carefully laid along the back of her chair. 

By the doorway, Annixter met Sarria, who had stepped 
out to smoke a fat, black cigar. The set smile of amia- 
bility was still fixed on the priest’s smooth, shiny face; 
the cigar ashes had left grey streaks on the front of his 
cassock. He avoided Annixter, fearing, no doubt, an 
allusion to his game cocks, and took up his position back 
of the second rank of chairs by the musicians’ stand, 
beaming encouragingly upon every one who caught 
his eye. 

Annixter was saluted right and left as he slowly went 
the round of the floor. At every moment he had to 
pause to shake hands and to listen to congratulations 
upon the size of his barn and the success of his dance. 
But he was distrait, his thoughts elsewhere; he did not 
attempt to hide his impatience when some of the young 
men tried to engage him in conversation, asking him to 
be introduced to their sisters, or their friends’ sisters. 
He sent them about their business harshly, abominably 
rude, leaving a wake of angry disturbance behind him, 
sowing the seeds of future quarrels and renewed un- 
popularity. He was looking for Hilma Tree. 

When at last he came unexpectedly upon her, standing 
near where Mrs. Tree was seated^ some half-dozen young 


251 


A Story of California 

men hovering uneasily in her neighbourhood, all his au- 
dacity was suddenly stricken from him ; his gruff ness, his 
overbearing insolence vanished with an abruptness that 
left him cold. His old-time confusion and embarrass- 
ment returned to him. Instead of speaking to her as 
he intended, he affected not to see her, but passed by, 
his head in the air, pretending a sudden interest in a 
Japanese lantern that was about to catch fire. 

But he had had a single distinct glimpse of her, 
definite, precise, and this glimpse was enough. Hilma 
had changed. The change was subtle, evanescent, hard 
to define, but not the less unmistakable. The excitement, 
the enchanting delight, the delicious disturbance of the 
first ball,’’ had produced its result. Perhaps there had 
only been this lacking. It was hard to say, but for that 
brief instant of time Annixter was looking at Hilma, 
the woman. She was no longer the young girl upon 
whom he might look down, to whom he might con- 
descend, whose little, infantile graces were to be consid- 
ered with amused toleration. 

When Annixter returned to the harness room, he let 
himself into a clamour of masculine hilarity. Osterman 
had, indeed, made a marvellous fertiliser,” whiskey for 
the most part, diluted with champagne and lemon juice. 
The first round of this drink had been welcomed with a 
salvo of cheers. Hooven, recovering his spirits under 
its violent stimulation, spoke of “ heving ut oudt mit 
Cudder, bei Gott,” while Osterman, standing on a chair 
at the end of the room, shouted for a “ few moments 
quiet, gentlemen,” so that he might tell a certain story 
he knew. 

But, abruptly, Annixter discovered that the liquors — 
the champagne, whiskey, brandy, and the like — were run- 
ning low. This would never do. He felt that he would 
stand diserraced if it could be said afterward that he had 


252 The Octopus 

not provided sufficient drink at his entertainment. He 
slipped out, unobserved, and, finding two of his ranch 
hands near the doorway, sent them down to the ranch 
house to bring up all the cases of stuff ’’ they found 
there. 

However, when this matter had been attended to, An- 
nixter did not immediately return to the harness room. 
On the floor of the barn a square dance was under way, 
the leader of the City Band calling the figures. Young 
Vacca indefatigably continued the rounds of the barn, 
paring candle after candle, possessed with this single idea 
of duty, pushing the dancers out of his way, refusing 
to admit that the floor was yet sufficiently slippery. The 
druggist had returned indoors, and leaned dejected and 
melancholy against the wall near the doorway, unable 
to dance, his evening’s enjoyment spoiled. The gayly 
apparelled clerk from Bonneville had just involved him- 
self in a deplorable incident. In a search for his hand- 
kerchief, which he had lost while trying to find his pro- 
gramme card, he had inadvertently wandered into the 
feed room, set apart as the ladies’ dressing room, at the 
moment when Mrs. Hooven, having removed the waist 
of Minna’s dress, was relacing her corsets. There was a 
tremendous scene. The clerk was ejected forcibly, Mrs. 
Hooven filling all the neighbourhood with shrill expostu- 
lation. A young man, Minna’s “ partner,” who stood near 
the feed room door, waiting for her to come out, had 
invited the clerk, with elaborate sarcasm, to step outside 
for a moment ; and the clerk, breathless, stupefied, hustled 
from hand to hand, remained petrified, with staring eyes, 
turning about and about, looking wildly from face to 
face, speechless, witless, wondering what had happened. 

But the square dance was over. The City Band was 
just beginning to play a waltz. Annixter assuring him- 
self that everything was going all right, was picking hi$ 


253 


A Story of California 

way across the floor, when he came upon Hilma Tree 
quite alone, and looking anxiously among the crowd of 
dancers. 

“ Having a good time. Miss Hilma ? he demanded, 
pausing for a moment. 

“ Oh, am I, just! ” she exclaimed. The best time — 
but I don’t know what has become of my partner. See ! 
I’m left all alone — the only time this whole evening,” 
she added proudly. “ Have you seen him — my partner, 
sir? I forget his name. I only met him this evening, 
and I’ve met so many I can’t begin to remember half 
of them. He was a young man from Bonneville — a 
clerk, I think, because I remember seeing him in a store 
there, and he wore the prettiest clothes ! ” 

“ I guess he got lost in the shuffle,” observed Annixter. 
Suddenly an idea occurred to him. He took his resolu- 
tion in both hands. He clenched his teeth. 

Say I look here. Miss Hilma. What’s the matter with 
you and I stealing this one for ourselves ? I don’t mean 
to dance. I don’t propose to make a jumping-jack of 
myself for some galoot to give me the laugh, but we’ll 
walk around. Will you? What do you say?” 

Hilma consented. 

I’m not so very sorry I missed my dance with that — 
that — little clerk,” she said guiltily. “I suppose that’s 
very bad of me, isn’t it?” 

Annixter fulminated a vigorous protest. 

I am so warm ! ” murmured Hilma, fanning herself 
with her handkerchief ; and, oh ! such a good time as 
I have had! I was so afraid that I would be a wall- 
flower and sit up by mamma and papa the whole even- 
ing ; and as it is, I have had every single dance, and even 
some dances I had to split. Oh-h ! ” she breathed, glanc- 
ing lovingly around the barn, noting again the festoons 
of tri-coloured cambric, the Japanese lanterns, flaring 


^54 


The Octopus 

lamps, and “decorations” of evergreen; “oh-h! it’s all 
so lovely, just like a fairy story; and to think that it 
can’t last but for one little evening, and that to-morrow 
morning one must wake up to the every-day things 
again ! ” 

“ Well,” observed Annixter doggedly, unwilling that 
she should forget whom she ought to thank, “ I did my 
best, and my best is as good as another man’s, I guess.” 

Hilma overwhelmed him with a burst of gratitude 
which he gruffly pretended to deprecate. Oh, that was 
all right. It hadn’t cost him much. He liked to see 
people having a good time himself, and the crowd did 
seem to be enjoying themselves. What did she think? 
Did things look lively enough? And how about herself 
— was she enjoying it? 

Stupidly Annixter drove the question home again, at 
his wits’ end as to how to make conversation. Hilma 
protested volubly she would never forget this night, 
adding : 

“ Dance ! Oh, you don’t know how I love it ! I didn’t 
know myself. I could dance all night and never stop 
once ! ” 

Annixter was smitten with uneasiness. No doubt this 
“ promenading ” was not at all to her taste. Wondering 
what kind of a spectacle he was about to make of him- 
self, he exclaimed: 

“Want to dance now?” 

“ Oh, yes ! ” she returned. 

They paused in their walk, and Hilma, facing him, 
gave herself into his arms. Annixter shut his teeth, 
the perspiration starting from his forehead. For five 
years he had abandoned dancing. Never in his best days 
had it been one of his accomplishments. 

They hesitated a moment, waiting to catch the time 
from the musicians. Another couple bore down upon 


255 


A Story of California 

them at precisely the wrong moment, jostling them out of 
step. Annixter swore under his breath. His arm still 
about the young woman, he pulled her over to one corner. 

“ Now,"'* he muttered, we’ll try again.” 

A second time, listening to the one-two-three, one-two- 
three cadence of the musicians, they endeavoured to get 
under way. Annixter waited the fraction of a second 
too long and stepped on Hilma’s foot. On the third 
attempt, having worked out of the corner, a pair of 
dancers bumped into them once more, and as they were 
recovering themselves another couple caromed violently 
against Annixter so that he all but lost his footing. He 
was in a rage. Hilma, very embarrassed, was trying not 
to laugh, and thus they found themselves, out in the 
middle of the floor, continually jostled from their posi- 
tion, holding clumsily to each other, stammering excuses 
into one another’s faces, when Delaney arrived. 

He came with the suddenness of an explosion. There 
was a commotion by the doorway, a rolling burst of 
oaths, a furious stamping of hoofs, a wild scramble of 
the dancers to either side of the room, and there he was. 
He had ridden the buckskin at a gallop straight through 
the doorway and out into the middle of the floor of the 
barn. 

Once well inside, Delaney hauled up on the cruel spade- 
bit, at the same time driving home the spurs, and the 
buckskin, without halting in her gait, rose into the air 
upon her hind feet, and coming down again with a 
thunder of iron hoofs upon the hollow floor, lashed out 
with both heels simultaneously, her back arched, her head 
between her knees. It was the running buck, and had 
not Delaney been the hardest buster in the county, would 
have flung him headlong like a sack of sand. But he 
eased off the bit, gripping the mare’s flanks with his 
knees, and the buckskin, having long since known her 


256 


The Octopus 


master, came to hand quivering, the bloody spume drip* 
ping from the bit upon the slippery floor. 

Delaney had arrayed himself with painful elaboration, 
determined to look the part, bent upon creating the im- 
pression, resolved that his appearance at least should 
justify his reputation of being “bad.” Nothing was 
lacking — neither the campaign hat with up-turned brim, 
nor the dotted blue handkerchief knotted behind the neck, 
nor the heavy gauntlets stitched with red, nor — this above 
all — the bear-skin “ chaparejos,” the hair trousers of the 
mountain cowboy, the pistol holster low on the thigh. But 
for the moment this holster was empty, and in his right 
hand, the hammer at full cock, the chamber loaded, the 
puncher flourished his teaser, an army Colt’s, the lamp- 
light dully reflected in the dark blue steel. 

In a second of time the dance was a bedlam. The 
musicians stopped with a discord, and the middle of the 
crowded floor bared itself instantly. It was like sand 
blown from off a rock; the throng of guests, carried 
by an impulse that was not to be resisted, bore back 
against the sides of the barn, overturning chairs, tripping 
upon each other, falling down, scrambling to their feet 
again, stepping over one another, getting behind each 
other, diving under chairs, flattening themselves against 
the wall — a wild, clamouring pell-mell, blind, deaf, panic- 
stricken ; a confused tangle of waving arms, torn muslin, 
crushed flowers, pale faces, tangled legs, that swept in 
all directions back from the centre of the floor, leaving 
Annixter and Hilma, alone, deserted, their arms about 
each other, face to face with Delaney, mad with alcohol, 
bursting with remembered insult, bent on evil, reckless 
of results. 

After the first scramble for safety, the crowd fell quiet 
for the fraction of an instant, glued to the walls, afraid 
to stir, struck dumb and motionless with surprise and 


A Story of California 257 

terror, and in the instant’s silence that followed Annixter, 
his eyes on Delaney, muttered rapidly to Hilma: 

“ Get back, get away to one side. The fool might 
shoot.” 

There was a second’s respite afforded while Delaney 
occupied himself in quieting the buckskin, and in that 
second of time, at this moment of crisis, the wonderful 
thing occurred. Hilma, turning from Delaney, her hands 
clasped on Annixter’s arm, her eyes meeting his, ex- 
claimed : 

“ You, too ! ” 

And that was all ; but to Annixter it was a revelation. 
Never more alive to his surroundings, never more ob- 
servant, he suddenly understood. For the briefest lapse 
of time he and Hilma looked deep into each other’s eyes, 
and from that moment on, Annixter knew that Hilma 
cared. 

The whole matter was brief as the snapping of a 
finger. Two words and a glance and all was done. But 
as though nothing had occurred, Annixter pushed Hilma 
from him, repeating harshly: 

“ Get back, I tell you. Don’t you see he’s got a gun ? 
Haven’t I enough on my hands without you ? ” 

He loosed her clasp and his eyes once more on De- 
laney, moved diagonally backwards toward the side of 
the barn, pushing Hilma from him. In the end he thrust 
her away so sharply that she gave back with a long 
stagger ; somebody caught her arm and drew her in, leav- 
ing Annixter alone once more in the middle of the floor, 
his hands in his coat pockets, watchful, alert, facing his 
enemy. 

But the cow-puncher was not ready to come to grapples 
yet. Fearless, his wits gambolling under the lash of the 
alcohol, he wished to make the most of the occasion, 
maintaining the suspense, playing for the gallery. By 


25 ^ 


The Octopus 


touches of the hand and knee he kept the buckskin in 
continual, nervous movement, her hoofs clattering, snort- 
ing, tossing her head, while he, himself, addressing him- 
self to Annixter, poured out a torrent of invective. 

“ Well, strike me blind if it ain’t old Buck Annixter ! 
He was going to show me off Quien Sabe at the toe of 
his boot, was he? Well, here’s your chance, — with the 
ladies to see you do it. Gives a dance, does he, high- 
falutin’ hoe-down in his barn and forgets to invite his 
old broncho-bustin’ friend. But his friend don’t for- 
get him; no, he don’t. He remembers little things, does 
his broncho-bustin’ friend. Likes to see a dance hisself 
on occasion, his friend does. Comes anyhow, trustin’ his 
welcome will be hearty ; just to see old Buck Annixter 
dance, just to show Buck Annixter’s friends how Buck 
can dance — dance all by hisself, a little hen-on-a-hot-plate 
dance when his broncho-bustin’ friend asks him so polite. 
A little dance for the ladies. Buck. This feature of the 
entertainment is alone worth the price of admission. 
Tune up, Buck. Attention now ! I’ll give you the key.” 

He “ fanned ” his revolver, spinning it about his index 
finger by the trigger-guard with incredible swiftness, the 
twirling weapon a mere blur of blue steel in his hand. 
Suddenly and without any apparent cessation of the move- 
ment, he fired, and a little splinter of wood flipped into 
the air at Annixter’s feet. 

“ Time ! ” he shouted, while the buckskin reared to 
the report. “ Hold on — wait a minute. This place is 
too light to suit. That big light yonder is in my eyes. 
Look out. I’m going to throw lead.” 

A second shot put out the lamp over the musicians’ 
stand. The assembled guests shrieked, a frantic, shrink- 
ing quiver ran through the crowd like the huddling of 
frightened rabbits in their pen. 

Annixter hardly moved. He stood some thirty paces 


A Story of California 259 

from the buster, his hands still in his coat pockets, his 
eyes glistening, watchful. 

Excitable and turbulent in trifling matters, when 
actual bodily danger threatened he was of an abnormal 
quiet. 

‘‘ I’m watching you,” cried the other. Don’t make 
any mistake about that. Keep your hands in your coat 
pockets, if you’d like to live a little longer, understand? 
And don’t let me see you make a move toward your hip 
or your friends will be asked to identify you at the 
morgue to-morrow morning. When I’m bad. I’m called 
the Undertaker’s Friend, so I am, and I’m that bad to- 
night that I’m scared of myself. They’ll have to revise 
the census returns before I’m done with this place. 
Come on, now. I’m getting tired waiting. I come to see 
a dance.” 

'' Hand over that horse, Delaney,” said Annixter, with- 
out raising his voice, “and clear out.” 

The other affected to be overwhelmed with infinite 
astonishment, his eyes staring. He peered down from 
the saddle. 

“ Wh-a-a-t ! ” he exclaimed ; “ wh-a-a-t did you say ? 
Why, I guess you must be looking for trouble; that’s 
what I guess.” 

“ There’s where you’re wrong, m’son,” muttered An- 
nixter, partly to Delaney, partly to himself. “ If I was 
looking for trouble there wouldn’t be any guess-work 
about it.” 

With the words he began firing. Delaney had hardly 
entered the barn before Annixter’s plan had been formed. 
Long since his revolver was in the pocket of his coat, and 
he fired now through the coat itself, without withdraw- 
ing his hands. 

Until that moment Annixter had not been sure of him- 
self- There was no doubt that for the first few moments 


26 o 


The Octopus 


of the affair he would have welcomed with joy any 
reasonable excuse for getting out of the situation. But 
the sound of his own revolver gave him confidence. He 
whipped it from his pocket and fired again. 

Abruptly the duel began, report following report, 
spurts of pale blue smoke jetting like the darts of short 
spears between the two men, expanding to a haze and 
drifting overhead in wavering strata. It was quite prob- 
able that no thought of killing each other suggested itself 
to either Annixter or Delaney. Both fired without aim- 
ing very deliberately. To empty their revolvers and 
avoid being hit was the desire common to both. They 
no longer vituperated each other. The revolvers spoke 
for them. 

Long after, Annixter could recall this moment. For 
years he could with but little effort reconstruct the scene 
— the densely packed crowd flattened against the sides of 
the barn, the festoons of lanterns, the mingled smell of 
evergreens, new wood, sachets, and powder smoke ; the 
vague clamour of distress and terror that rose from the 
throng of guests, the squealing of the buckskin, the un- 
even explosions of the revolvers, the reverberation of 
trampling hoofs, a brief glimpse of Harran Derrick’s 
excited face at the door of the harness room, and in the 
open space in the centre of the floor, himse.lf and De- 
laney, manoeuvring swiftly in a cloud of smoke. 

Annixter’s revolver contained but six cartridges. Al- 
ready it seemed to him as if he had fired twenty times. 
Without doubt the next shot was his last. Then what? 
He peered through the blue haze that with every dis- 
charge thickened between him and the buster. For his 
own safety he must “ place ” at least one shot. Delaney’s 
chest and shoulders rose suddenly above the smoke close 
upon him as the distraught buckskin reared again. An- 
nixter, for the first time during the fight, took definite 


26 i 


A Story of California 

aim, but before he could draw the trigger there was a 
great shout and he was aware of the buckskin, the 
bridle trailing, the saddle empty, plunging headlong 
across the floor, crashing into the line of chairs. De- 
laney was scrambling off the floor. There was blood on 
the buster’s wrist and he no longer carried his revolver. 
Suddenly he turned and ran. The crowd parted right 
and left before him as he made toward the doorway. 
He disappeared. 

Twenty men promptly sprang to the buckskin’s head, 
but she broke away, and wild with terror, bewildered, 
blind, insensate, charged into the corner of the barn by 
the musicians’ stand. She brought up against the wall 
with cruel force and with impact of a sack of stones ; her 
head was cut. She turned and charged again, bull-like, 
the blood streaming from her forehead. The crowd, 
shrieking, melted before her rush. An old man was 
thrown down and trampled. The buckskin trod upon 
the dragging bridle, somersaulted into a confusion of 
chairs in one corner, and came down with a terrific clat- 
ter in a wild disorder of kicking hoofs and splintered 
wood. But a crowd of men fell upon her, tugging at the 
bit, sitting on her head, shouting, gesticulating. For 
five minutes she struggled and fought ; then, by degrees, 
she recovered herself, drawing great sobbing breaths at 
long intervals that all but burst the girths, rolling her 
eyes in bewildered, supplicating fashion, trembling in 
every muscle, and starting and shrinking now and then 
like a young girl in hysterics. At last she lay quiet. 
The men allowed her to struggle to her feet. The saddle 
was removed and she was led to one of the empty stalls, 
where she remained the rest of the evening, her head 
low, her pasterns quivering, turning her head apprehen- 
sively from time to time, showing the white of one eye 
and at long intervals heaving a single prolonged sigh. 


262 The Octopus 

And an hour later the dance was progressing as evenly 
as though nothing in the least extraordinary had oc- 
curred. The incident was closed — that abrupt swoop of 
terror and impending death dropping down there from 
out the darkness, cutting abruptly athwart the gayety of 
the moment, come and gone with the swiftness of a 
thunderclap. Many of the women had gone home, tak- 
ing their men with them ; but the great bulk of the crowd 
still remained, seeing no reason why the episode should 
interfere with the evening’s enjoyment, resolved to hold 
the ground for mere bravado, if for nothing else. De- 
laney would not come back, of that everybody was per- 
suaded, and in case he should, there was not found want- 
ing fully half a hundred young men who would give 
him a dressing down, by jingo! They had been too sur- 
prised to act when Delaney had first appeared, and be- 
fore they knew where they were at, the buster had cleared 
out. In another minute, just another second, they would 
have shown him — yes, sir, by jingo! — ah, you bet! 

On all sides the reminiscences began to circulate. At 
least one man in every three had been involved in a 
gun fight at some time of his life. “ Ah, you ought to 
have seen in Yuba County one time — ” “ Why, in 

Butte County in the early days — '' Pshaw ! this to- 
night wasn’t anything! Why, once in a saloon in Ari- 
zona when I was there — ” and so on, over and over 
again. Osterman solemnly asserted that he had seen a 
greaser sawn in two in a Nevada sawmill. Old Broder- 
son had witnessed a Vigilante lynching in ’55 on Cali- 
fornia Street in San Francisco. Dyke recalled how once 
in his engineering days he had run over a drunk at a 
street crossing. Gethings of the San Pablo had taken a 
shot at a highwayman. Hooven had bayonetted a French 
Chasseur at Sedan. An old Spanish-Mexican, a cen- 
tenarian from Guadalajara, remembered Fremont’s stand 


A Story of California 263 

on a mountain top in San Benito County. The druggist 
had fired at a burglar trying to break into his store one 
New Year's eve. Young Vacca had seen a dog shot in 
Guadalajara. Father Sarria had more than once admin- 
istered the sacraments to Portuguese desperadoes dying 
of gunshot wounds. Even the women recalled terrible 
scenes. Mrs. Cutter recounted to an interested group 
how she had seen a claim jumped in Placer County in 
1851, when three men were shot, falling in a fusillade of 
rifle shots, and expiring later upon the floor of her kitchen 
while she looked on. Mrs. Dyke had been in a stage 
hold-up, when the shotgun messenger was murdered. 
Stories by the hundreds went the round of the company. 
The air was surcharged with blood, dying groans, the 
reek of powder smoke, the crack of rifles. All the 
legends of *49, the violent, wild life of the early days, 
were recalled to view, defiling before them there in an 
endless procession under the glare of paper lanterns and 
kerosene lamps. 

But the affair had aroused a combative spirit amongst 
the men of the assembly. Instantly a spirit of aggres- 
sion, of truculence, swelled up underneath waistcoats 
and starched shirt bosoms. More than one offender was 
promptly asked to “step outside." It was like young 
bucks excited by an encounter of stags, lowering their 
horns upon the slightest provocation, showing off before 
the does and fawns. Old quarrels were remembered. 
One sought laboriously for slights and insults, veiled in 
ordinary conversation. The sense of personal honour be- 
came refined to a delicate, fine point. Upon the slightest 
pretext there was a haughty drawing up of the figure, 
a twisting of the lips into a smile of scorn. Caraher 
spoke of shooting S. Behrman on sight before the end 
of the week. Twice it became necessary to separate 
Hooven and Cutter, renewing their quarrel as to the 


264 The Octopus 

ownership of the steer. All at once Minna Hooven’s 
“ partner ” fell upon the gayly apparelled clerk from 
Bonneville, pummelling him with his fists, hustling him 
out of the hall, vociferating that Miss Hooven had been 
grossly insulted. It took three men to extricate the 
clerk from his clutches, dazed, gasping, his collar un- 
fastened and sticking up into his face, his eyes staring 
wildly into the faces of the crowd. 

But Annixter, bursting with pride, his chest thrown 
out, his chin in the air, reigned enthroned in a circle 
of adulation. He was the Hero. To shake him by the 
hand was an honour to be struggled for. One clapped 
him on the back with solemn nods of approval. ‘‘ There’s 
the hoy for you ; ” “ There was nerve for you ; ” ** What’s 
the matter with Annixter ? ” How about that for sand, 
and how was that for a shot?” ‘‘Why, Apache Kid 
couldn’t have bettered that.” “ Cool enough.” “ Took 
a steady eye and a sure hand to make a shot like that.” 
“There was a shot that would be told about in Tulare 
County fifty years to come.” 

Annixter had refrained from replying, all ears to this 
conversation, wondering just what had happened. He 
knew only that Delaney had run, leaving his revolver 
and a spatter of blood behind him. By degrees, how- 
ever, he ascertained that his last shot but one had struck 
Delaney’s pistol hand, shattering it and knocking the 
revolver from his grip. He was overwhelmed with as- 
tonishment. Why, after the shooting began he had not 
so much as seen Delaney with any degree of plainness. 
The whole affair was a whirl. 

“ Well, where did you learn to shoot that way? ” some 
one in the crowd demanded. Annixter moved his shoul- 
ders with a gesture of vast unconcern. 

“Oh,” he observed carelessly, “it’s not my shooting 
that ever worried me, m’son.” 


A Story of California 265 

The crowd gaped with delight. There was a great 
wagging of heads. 

Well, I guess not” 

** No, sir, not much.” 

** Ah, no, you bet not” 

When the women pressed around him, shaking his 
hands, declaring that he had saved their daughters’ lives, 
Annixter assumed a pose of superb deprecation, the mod- 
est self-obliteration of the chevalier. He delivered him- 
self of a remembered phrase, very elegant, refined. It 
was Lancelot after the tournament, Bayard receiving 
felicitations after the battle. 

Oh, don’t say anything about it,” he murmured. I 
only did what any man would have done in my place.” 

To restore completely the equanimity of the company, 
he announced supper. This he had calculated as a tre- 
mendous surprise. It was to have been served at mid- 
night, but the irruption of Delaney had dislocated the 
order of events, and the tables were brought in an hour 
ahead of time. They were arranged around three sides 
of the barn and were loaded down with cold roasts of 
beef, cold chickens and cold ducks, mountains of sand- 
wiches, pitchers of milk and lemonade, entire cheeses, 
bowls of olives, plates of oranges and nuts. The advent 
of this supper was received with a volley of applause. 
The musicians played a quick step. The company threw 
themselves upon the food with a great scraping of chairs 
and a vast rustle of muslins, tarletans, and organdies; 
soon the clatter of dishes was a veritable uproar. The 
tables were taken by assault. One ate whatever was 
nearest at hand, some even beginning with oranges and 
nuts and ending with beef and chicken. At the end the 
paper caps were brought on, together with the ice cream. 
All up and down the tables the pulled crackers ” snapped 
continually like the discharge of innumerable tiny rifles. 


266 


The Octopus 

The caps of tissue paper were put on — Phrygian Bon* 
nets,” “ Magicians' Caps,” ** Liberty Caps ; ” the young 
girls looked across the table at their vis-a-vis with bursts 
of laughter and vigorous clapping of the hands. 

The harness room crowd had a table to themselves, at 
the head of which sat Annixter and at the foot Harran. 
The gun fight had sobered Presley thoroughly. He sat 
by the side of Vanamee, who ate but little, preferring 
rather to watch the scene with calm observation, a little 
contemptuous when the uproar around the table was too 
boisterous, savouring of intoxication. Osterman rolled 
bullets of bread and shot them with astonishing force 
up and down the table, but the others — Dyke, old Broder- 
son, Caraher, Harran Derrick, Hooven, Cutter, Garnett 
of the Ruby rancho, Keast from the ranch of the same 
name, Gethings of the San Pablo, and Chattern of the 
Bonanza — occupied themselves with eating as much as 
they could before the supper gave out. At a corner of 
the table, speechless, unobserved, ignored, sat Dabney, 
of whom nothing was known but his name, the silent 
old man who made no friends. He ate and drank 
quietly, dipping his sandwich in his lemonade. 

Osterman ate all the olives he could lay his hands on, 
a score of them, fifty of them, a hundred of them. He 
touched no crumb of anything else. Old Broderson 
stared at him, his jaw fallen. Osterman declared he had 
once eaten a thousand on a bet. The men called each 
others' attention to him. Delighted to create a sensa- 
tion, Osterman persevered. The contents of an entire 
bowl disappeared in his huge, reptilian slit of a mouth. 
His cheeks of brownish red were extended, his bald fore- 
head glistened. Colics seized upon him. His stomach 
revolted. It was all one with him. He was satisfied, 
contented. He was astonishing the people. 

“ Once I swallowed a tree toad,” he told old Broder* 


A Story of California ^67 

son, mistake. I was eating grapes, and the beggar 

lived in me three weeks. In rainy weather he would sing. 
You don’t believe that,” he vociferated. “ Haven’t I got 
the toad at home now in a bottle of alcohol.” 

And the old man, never doubting, his eyes starting, 
wagged his head in amazement. 

‘‘Oh, yes,” cried Caraher, the length of the table, 
“ that’s a pretty good one. Tell us another.” 

“ That reminds me of a story,” hazarded old Broder- 
son uncertainly ; “ once when I was a lad in Ukiah, fifty 
years ” 

“ Oh, yes,” cried half a dozen voices, “ thafs a pretty 
good one. Tell us another.” 

“Eh — wh — what?” murmured Broderson, looking 
about him. “I — I don’t know. It was Ukiah. You — 
you — ^you mix me all up.” 

As soon as supper was over, the floor was cleared 
again. The guests clamoured for a Virginia reel. The 
last quarter of the evening, the time of the most riotous 
fun, was beginning. The young men caught the girls 
who sat next to them. The orchestra dashed off into a 
rollicking movement. The two lines were formed. In a 
second of time the dance was under way again ; the guests 
still wearing the Phrygian bonnets and liberty caps of 
pink and blue tissue paper. 

But the group of men once more adjourned to the har- 
ness room. Fresh boxes of cigars were opened; the sev- 
enth bowl of fertiliser was mixed. Osterman poured the 
dregs of a glass of it upon his bald head, declaring that 
he could feel the hair beginning to grow. 

But suddenly old Broderson rose to his feet. 

“Aha,” he cackled, “/’m going to have a dance, I 
am. Think I’m too old? I’ll show you young fellows. 
I’m a regular old rooster when I get started.” 

He marched out into the barn, the others following. 


268 


The Octopus 


holding their sides. He found an aged Mexican woman 
by the door and hustled her, all confused and giggling, 
into the Virginia reel, then at its height. Every one 
crowded around to see. Old Broderson stepped off with 
the alacrity of a colt, snapping his fingers, slapping his 
thigh, his mouth widening in an excited grin. The entire 
company of the guests shouted. The City Band re- 
doubled their efforts ; and the old man, losing his head, 
breathless, gasping, dislocated his stiff joints in his ef- 
forts. He became possessed, bowing, scraping, advanc- 
ing, retreating, wagging his beard, cutting pigeons’ wings, 
distraught with the music, the clamour, the applause, the 
effects of the fertiliser. 

Annixter shouted: 

Nice eye, Santa Claus.” 

But Annixter’s attention wandered. He searched for 
Hilma Tree, having still in mind the look in her eyes at 
that swift moment of danger. He had not seen her since 
then. At last he caught sight of her. She was not 
dancing, but, instead, was sitting with her “ partner ” at 
the end of the barn near her father and mother, her eyes 
wide, a serious expression on her face, her thoughts, no 
doubt, elsewhere. Annixter was about to go to her when 
he was interrupted by a cry. 

Old Broderson, in the midst of a double shuffle, had 
clapped his hand to his side with a gasp, which he fol- 
lowed by a whoop of anguish. He had got a stitch or had 
started a twinge somewhere. With a gesture of resigna- 
tion, he drew himself laboriously out of the dance, limp- 
ing abominably, one leg dragging. He was heard asking 
for his wife. Old Mrs. Broderson took him in charge. 
She jawed him for making an exhibition of himself, 
scolding as though he were a ten-year-old. 

Well, I want to know ! ” she exclaimed, as he hobbled 
off, dejected and melancholy, leaning upon her arm, 


269 


A Story of California 

** thought he had to dance, indeed ! What next ? A gay 
old grandpa, this. He’d better be thinking of his coffin.” 

It was almost midnight. The dance drew towards its 
close in a storm of jubilation. The perspiring musicians 
toiled like galley slaves ; the guests singing as they danced. 

The group of men reassembled in the harness room. 
Even Magnus Derrick condescended to enter and drink 
a toast. Presley and Vanamee, still holding themselves 
aloof, looked on, Vanamee more and more disgusted. 
Dabney, standing to one side, overlooked and forgotten, 
continued to sip steadily at his glass, solemn, reserved. 
Garnett of the Ruby rancho, Keast from the ranch of 
the same name, Gethings of the San Pablo, and Chattern 
of the Bonanza, leaned back in their chairs, their waist- 
coats unbuttoned, their legs spread wide, laughing — ^they 
could not tell why. Other ranchers, men whom Annixter 
had never seen, appeared in the room, wheat growers 
from places as far distant as Goshen and Pixley; young 
men and old, proprietors of veritable principalities, hun- 
dreds of thousands of acres of wheat lands, a dozen of 
them, a score of them; men who were strangers to each 
other, but who made it a point to shake hands with 
Magnus Derrick, the prominent man” of the valley. 
Old Broderson, whom every one had believed had gone 
home, returned, though much sobered, and took his place, 
refusing, however, to drink another spoonful. 

Soon the entire number of Annixter’s guests found 
themselves in two companies, the dancers on the floor of 
the barn, frolicking through the last figures of the Vir- 
ginia reel and the boisterous gathering of men in the 
harness room, downing the last quarts of fertiliser. Both 
assemblies had been increased. Even the older people 
had joined in the dance, while nearly every one of the 
men who did not dance had found their way into the 
harness room. The two groups rivalled each other in 


270 


The Octopus 


their noise. Out on the floor of the barn was a very 
whirlwind of gayety,a tempest of laughter, hand-clapping 
and cries of amusement. In the harness room the con- 
fused shouting and singing, the stamping of heavy feet, 
set a quivering reverberation in the oil of the kerosene 
lamps, the flame of the candles in the Japanese lanterns 
flaring and swaying in the gusts of hilarity. At intervals, 
between the two, one heard the music, the wailing of the 
violins, the vigorous snarling of the cornet, and the 
harsh, incessant rasping of the snare drum. 

And at times all these various sounds mingled in a 
single vague note, huge, clamorous, that rose up into the 
night from the colossal, reverberating compass of the 
barn and sent its echoes far off across the unbroken levels 
of the surrounding ranches, stretching out to infinity 
under the clouded sky, calm, mysterious, still. 

Annixter, the punch bowl clasped in his arms, was 
pouring out the last spoonful of liquor into Caraher’s 
glass when he was aware that some one was pulling at 
the sleeve of his coat. He set down the punch bowl. 

** Well, where did you come from? ” he demanded. 

It was a messenger from Bonneville, the uniformed 
boy that the telephone company employed to carry mes- 
sages. He had just arrived from town on his bicycle, 
out of breath and panting. 

“ Message for you, sir. Will you sign ? 

He held the book to Annixter, who signed the receipt, 
wondering. 

The boy departed, leaving a thick envelope of yellow 
paper in Annixter’s hands, the address typewritten, the 
word ** Urgent ” written in blue pencil in one corner. 

Annixter tore it open. The envelope contained other 
sealed envelopes, some eight or ten of them, addressed to 
Magnus Derrick, Osterman, Broderson, Garnett, Keast, 
Gethings, Chattern, Dabney, and to Annixter himself. 


A Story of California 271 

Still puzzled, Annixter distributed the envelopes, mut- 
tering to himself : 

“ What’s up now ? ” 

The incident had attracted attention. A comparative 
quiet followed, the guests following the letters with their 
eyes as they were passed around the table. They fancied 
that Annixter had arranged a surprise. 

Magnus Derrick, who sat next to Annixter, was the 
first to receive his letter. With a word of excuse he 
opened it. 

‘‘ Read it, read it, Governor,” shouted a half-dozen 
voices. “ No secrets, you know. Everything above 
board here to-night.” 

Magnus cast a glance at the contents of the letter, then 
rose to his feet and read : 

Magnus Derrick, 

Bonneville, Tulare Co., Cal. 

Dear Sir: 

By regrade of October ist, the value of the railroad 
land you occupy, included in your ranch of Los Muertos, 
has been fixed at $27.00 per acre. The land is now for 
sale at that price to any one. 

Yours, etc., 

Cyrus Blakelee Ruggles, 

Land Agent, P. and S. W. R. R. 

S. Behrman, 

Local Agent, P. and S. W, R. R. 

In the midst of the profound silence that followed, 
Osterman was heard to exclaim grimly : 

** That's a pretty good one. Tell us another.” 

But for a long moment this was the only remark. 

The silence widened, broken only by the sound of torn 


272 The Octopus 

paper as Annixter, Osterman, old Broderson, Garnett, 
Keast, Gethings, Chattern, and Dabney opened and read 
their letters. They were all to the same effect, almost 
word for word like the Governor’s. Only the figures and 
the proper names varied. In some cases the price per 
acre was twenty-two dollars. In Annixter’s case it was 
thirty. 

“ And — and the company promised to sell to me, to — 
to all of us,” gasped old Broderson, “ at two dollars and 
a half an acre.” 

It was not alone the ranchers immediately around 
Bonneville who would be plundered by this move on the 
part of the Railroad. The alternate section ” system 
applied throughout all the San Joaquin. By striking 
at the Bonneville ranchers a terrible precedent was 
established. Of the crowd of guests in the harness 
room alone, nearly every man was affected, every man 
menaced with ruin. All of a million acres was suddenly 
involved. 

Then suddenly the tempest burst. A dozen men were 
on their feet in an instant, their teeth set, their fists 
clenched, their faces purple with rage. Oaths, curses, 
maledictions exploded like the firing of successive mines. 
Voices quivered with wrath, hands flung upward, the 
fingers hooked, prehensile, trembled with anger. The 
sense of wrongs, the injustices, the oppression, extortion, 
and pillage of twenty years suddenly culminated and 
found voice in a raucous howl of execration. For a 
second there was nothing articulate in that cry of savage 
exasperation, nothing even intelligent. It was the human 
animal hounded to its corner, exploited, harried to its 
last stand, at bay, ferocious, terrible, turning at last with 
bared teeth and upraised claws to meet the death grapple. 
It was the hideous squealing of the tormented brute, its 
back to the wall, defending its lair, its mate and its 


273 


A Story of California 

whelps, ready to bite, to rend, to trample, to batter out 
the life of The Enemy in a primeval, bestial welter of 
blood and fury. 

The roar subsided to intermittent clamour, in the 
pauses of which the sounds of music and dancing made 
themselves audible once more. 

S. Behrman again,” vociferated Harran Derrick. 

'' Chose his moment well,” muttered Annixter. '' Hits 
his hardest when we’re all rounded up having a good 
time.” 

Gentlemen, this is ruin.” 

What’s to be done now ? ” 

Fight! My God! do you think we are going to 
stand this? Do you think we canf 

The uproar swelled again. The clearer the assembly 
of ranchers understood the significance of this move on 
the part of the Railroad, the more terrible it appeared, 
the more flagrant, the more intolerable. Was it possible, 
was it within the bounds of imagination that this tyranny 
should be contemplated? But they knew — past years 
had driven home the lesson — the implacable, iron mon- 
ster with whom they had to deal, and again and again 
the sense of outrage and oppression lashed them to their 
feet, their mouths wide with curses, their fists clenched 
tight, their throats hoarse with shouting. 

''Fight! How fight? What are you going to do?” 

"If there’s a law in this land ” 

"If there is, it is in Shelgrim’s pocket. Who owns the 
courts in California? Ain’t it Shelgrim?” 

" God damn him.” 

"Well, how long are you going to stand it? How 
long before you’ll settle up accounts with six inches of 
plugged gas-pipe ? ” 

" And our contracts, the solemn pledges of the corpo- 
ration to sell to us first of all ” 

i8 


2 74 


The Octopus 


And now the land is for sale to anybody/' 

'' Why, it is a question of my home. Am I to be turned 
out? Why, I have put eight thousand dollars into im- 
proving this land." 

'' And I six thousand, and now that I have, the Rail- 
road grabs it." 

‘‘And the system of irrigating ditches that Derrick 
and I have been laying out. There’s thousands of dollars 
in that!" 

“ ril fight this out till I’ve spent every cent of my 
money." 

“ Where ? In the courts that the company owns ? ’’ 

“ Think I am going to give in to this ? Think I am to 
get off my land? By God, gentlemen, law or no law, 
railroad or no railroad, I — will — notJ' 

“ Nor I.’’ 

“ Nor I." 

“ Nor 1." 

“This is the last. Legal means first; if those fail — 
the shotgun." 

“ They can kill me. They can shoot me down, but 
I’ll die — die fighting for my home — before Til give in to 
this." 

At length Annixter made himself heard: 

“ All out of the room but the ranch owners," he 
shouted. “ Hooven, Caraher, Dyke, you’ll have to clear 
out. This is a family affair. Presley, you and your 
friend can remain." 

Reluctantly the others filed through the door. There 
remained in the harness room — ^besides Vanamee and 
Presley — Magnus Derrick, Annixter, old Broderson, 
Harran, Garnett from the Ruby rancho, Keast from the 
ranch of the same name, Gethings of the San Pablo, 
Chattern of the Bonanza, about a score of others, ranch- 
ers from various parts of the county, and, last of all, 


A Story of California 275 

Dabney, ignored, silent, to whom nobody spoke and who, 
as yet, had not uttered a word. 

But the men who had been asked to leave the harness 
room spread the news throughout the barn. It was re- 
peated from lip to lip. One by one the guests dropped 
out of the dance. Groups were formed. By swift de- 
grees the gayety lapsed away. The Virginia reel broke 
up. The musicians ceased playing, and in the place of 
the noisy, effervescent revelry of the previous half hour, a 
subdued murmur filled all the barn, a mingling of whis- 
pers, lowered voices, the coming and going of light foot- 
steps, the uneasy shifting of positions, while from behind 
the closed doors of the harness room came a prolonged, 
sullen hum of anger and strenuous debate. The dance 
came to an abrupt end. The guests, unwilling to go as 
yet, stunned, distressed, stood clumsily about, their eyes 
vague, their hands swinging at their sides, looking 
stupidly into each others’ faces. A sense of impending 
calamity, oppressive, foreboding, gloomy, passed through 
the air overhead in the night, a long shiver of anguish 
and of terror, mysterious, despairing. 

In the harness room, however, the excitement con- 
tinued unchecked. One rancher after another delivered 
himself of a torrent of furious words. There was no 
order, merely the frenzied outcry of blind fury. One 
spirit alone was common to all — resistance at whatever 
cost and to whatever lengths. 

Suddenly Osterman leaped to his feet, his bald head 
gleaming in the lamp-light, his red ears distended, a 
flood of words filling his great, horizontal slit of a mouth, 
his comic actor’s face flaming. Like the hero of a melo- 
drama, he took stage with a great sweeping gesture. 

'' Organisation^' he shouted, that must be our watch- 
word. The curse of the ranchers is that they fritter 
away their strength. Now, we must stand together, now, 


376 ‘ The Octopus 

now. Here’s the crisis, here’s the moment. Shall we 
meet it? 1 call for the League. Not next week, not to- 
morrow, not in the morning", but now, now, now, this 
very moment, before we go out of that door. Every one 
of us here to join it, to form the beginnings of a vast 
organisation, banded together to death, if needs be, for 
the protection of our rights and homes. Are you ready ? 
Is it now or never? I call for the League.” 

Instantly there was a shout. With an actor’s instinct, 
Osterman had spoken at the precise psychological moment. 
He carried the others off their feet, glib, dexterous, volu- 
ble. Just what was meant by the League the others did 
not know, but it was something, a vague engine, a ma- 
chine with which to fight. Osterman had not done speak- 
ing before the room rang with outcries, the crowd of 
men shouting, for what they did not know. 

‘‘ The League ! The League ! ” 

“ Now, to-night, this moment; sign our names before 
we leave.” 

“ He’s right. Organisation ! The League ! ” 

“We have a committee at work already,” Osterman 
vociferated. “ I am a member, and also Mr. Broderson, 
Mr. Annixter, and Mr. Harran Derrick. What our aims 
are we will explain to you later. Let this committee be 
the nucleus of the League — temporarily, at least. Trust 
us. We are working for you and with you. Let this 
committee be merged into the larger committee of the 
League, and for President of the League ” — he paused 
the fraction of a second — “ for President there can be 
but one name mentioned, one man to whom we all must 
look as leader — Magnus Derrick.” 

The Governor’s name was received with a storm of 
cheers. The harness room reechoed with shouts of : 

“ Derrick ! Derrick ! ” 

Magnus for President I ” 


277 


A Story of California 

" Derrick, our natural leader.” 

** Derrick, Derrick, Derrick for President.” 

Magnus rose to his feet. He made no gesture. Erect 
as a cavalry officer, tall, thin, commanding, he domi- 
nated the crowd in an instant. There was a moment's 
hush. 

“ Gentlemen,” he said, if organisation is a good 
word, moderation is a better one. The matter is too 
grave for haste. I would suggest that we each and sev- 
erally return to our respective homes for the night, sleep 
over what has happened, and convene again to-morrow, 
when we are calmer and can approach this affair in a 
more judicious mood. As for the honour with which you 
would inform me, I must affirm that that, too, is a matter 
for grave deliberation. This League is but a name as yet. 
To accept control of an organisation whose principles 
are not yet fixed is a heavy responsibility. I shrink from 
it ” 

But he was allowed to proceed no farther. A storm of 
protest developed. There were shouts of : 

“ No, no. The League to-night and Derrick for Pres- 
ident.” 

'' We have been moderate too long.” 

‘‘The League first, principles afterward.” 

“ We can't wait,” declared Osterman. “ Many of us 
cannot attend a meeting to-morrow. Our business affairs 
would prevent it. Now we are all together. I propose 
a temporary chairman and secretary be named and a bal- 
lot be taken. But first the League. Let us draw up a 
set of resolutions to stand together, for the defence of 
our homes, to death, if needs be, and each man present 
affix his signature thereto.” 

He subsided amidst vigorous applause. The next 
quarter of an hour was a vague confusion, every one talk- 
ing at once^ conversations going on in low tones in 


278 


The Octopus 

various corners of the room. Ink, pens, and a sheaf of 
foolscap were brought from the ranch house. A set of 
resolutions was draughted, having the force of a pledge, 
organising the League of Defence. Annixter was the 
first to sign. Others followed, only a few holding back, 
refusing to join till they had thought the matter over. 
The roll grew; the paper circulated about the table; 
each signature was welcomed by a salvo of cheers. At 
length, it reached Harran Derrick, who signed amid 
tremendous uproar. He released the pen only to shake 
a score of hands. 

“ Now, Magnus Derrick.*’ 

“ Gentlemen,” began the Governor, once more rising, 

I beg of you to allow me further consideration. Gen- 
tlemen ” 

He was interrupted by renewed shouting. 

No, no, now or never. Sign, join the League.” 

“ Don’t leave us. We look to you to help.” 

But presently the excited throng that turned their 
faces towards the Governor were aware of a new face at 
his elbow. The door of the harness room had been left 
unbolted and Mrs. Derrick, unable to endure the heart- 
breaking suspense of waiting outside, had gathered up 
all her courage and had come into the room. Trembling, 
she clung to Magnus’s arm, her pretty light-brown hair 
in disarray, her large young girl’s eyes wide with terror 
and distrust. What was about to happen she did not 
understand, but these men were clamouring for Magnus 
to pledge himself to something, to some terrible course 
of action, some ruthless, unscrupulous battle to the death 
with the iron-hearted monster of steel and steam. Nerved 
with a coward’s intrepidity, she, who so easily obliterated 
herself, had found her way into the midst of this frantic 
crowd, into this hot, close room, reeking of alcohol and 
tobacco smoke, into this atmosphere surcharged with 


A Story of California 279 

hatred and curses. She seized her husband’s arm im- 
ploring, distraught with terror. 

'' No, no,” she murmured ; '' no, don’t sign.” 

She was the feather caught in the whirlwind. En 
masse, the crowd surged toward the erect figure of the 
Governor, the pen in one hand, his wife’s fingers in the 
other, the roll of signatures before him. The clamour 
was deafening; the excitement culminated brusquely. 
Half a hundred hands stretched toward him; thirty 
voices^ at top pitch, implored, expostulated, urged, al- 
most commanded. The reverberation of the shouting 
was as the plunge of a cataract. 

It was the uprising of The People ; the thunder of th(c 
outbreak of revolt ; the mob demanding to be led, aroused 
at last, imperious, resistless, overwhelming. It was the 
blind fury of insurrection, the brute, many-tongued, red- 
eyed, bellowing for guidance, baring its teeth, unsheath- 
ing its claws, imposing its will with the abrupt, resistless 
pressure of the relaxed piston, inexorable, knowing no 
pity. 

No, no,” implored Annie Derrick. No, Magnus, 
don’t sign.” 

“ He must** declared Harran, shouting in her ear to 
make himself heard, ‘‘ he must. Don’t you understand ? ” 

Again the crowd surged forward, roaring. Mrs. Der- 
rick was swept back, pushed to one side. Her husband 
no longer belonged to her. She paid the penalty for 
being the wife of a great man. The world, like a colossal 
iron wedge, crushed itself between. She was thrust to 
the wall. The throng of men, stamping, surrounded 
Magnus ; she could no longer see him, but, terror-struck, 
she listened. There was a moment’s lull, then a vast 
thunder of savage jubilation. Magnus had signed. 

Harran found his mother leaning against the wall, her 
hands shut over her ears; her eyes, dilated with fear, 


28 o 


The Octopus 


brimming with tears. He led her from the harness room 
to the outer room, where Mrs. Tree and Hilma took 
charge of her, and then, impatient, refusing to answer the 
hundreds of anxious questions that assailed him, hurried 
back to the harness room. 

Already the balloting was in progress, Osterman acting 
as temporary chairman. On the very first ballot he was 
made secretary of the League pro tern., and Magnus 
unanimously chosen for its President. An executive 
committee was formed, which was to meet the next day 
at the Los Muertos ranch house. 

It was half-past one o’clock. In the barn outside the 
greater number of the guests had departed. Long since 
the musicians had disappeared. There only remained 
the families of the ranch owners involved in the meeting 
in the harness room. These huddled in isolated groups 
in corners of the garish, echoing barn, the women in their 
wraps, the young men with their coat collars turned up 
against the draughts that once more made themselves 
felt. 

For a long half hour the loud hum of eager conversa- 
tion continued to issue from behind the door of the har- 
ness room. Then, at length, there was a prolonged 
scraping of chairs. The session was over. The men 
came out in groups, searching for their families. 

At once the homeward movement began. Every one 
was worn out. Some of the ranchers’ daughters had 
gone to sleep against their mothers’ shoulders. 

Billy, the stableman, and his assistant were awakened, 
and the teams were hitched up. The stable yard was full 
of a maze of swinging lanterns and buggy lamps. The 
horses fretted, champing the bits ; the carry-alls creaked 
with the straining of leather and springs as they received 
their loads. At every instant one heard the rattle of 
wheels, as vehicle after vehicle disappeared in the night. 


A Story of California 281 

A fine, drizzling rain was falling, and the lamps began to 
show dim in a vague haze of orange light. 

Magnus Derrick was the last to go. At the doorway 
of the barn he found Annixter, the roll of names — which 
it had been decided he was to keep in his safe for the 
moment — under his arm. Silently the two shook hands. 
Magnus departed. The grind of the wheels of his carry- 
all grated sharply on the gravel of the driveway in front 
of the ranch house, then, with a hollow roll across a 
little plank bridge, gained the roadway. For a moment 
the beat of the horses’ hoofs made itself heard on the 
roadwa}^ It ceased. Suddenly there was a great silence. 

Annixter, in the doorway of the great barn, stood 
looking about him for a moment, alone, thoughtful. 
The barn was empty. That astonishing evening had 
come to an end. The whirl of things and people, the 
crowd of dancers, Delaney, the gun fight, Hilma Tree, 
her eyes fixed on him in mute confession, the rabble in 
the harness room, the news of the regrade, the fierce 
outburst of wrath, the hasty organising of the League, all 
went spinning confusedly through his recollection. But 
he was exhausted. Time enough in the morning to think 
it all over. By now it was raining sharply. He put the 
roll of names into his inside pocket, threw a sack over 
his head and shoulders, and went down to the ranch 
house. 

But in the harness room, hghted by the glittering lan- 
terns and flaring lamps, in the midst of overturned chairs, 
spilled liquor, cigar stumps, and broken glasses, Van- 
amee and Presley still remained talking, talking. At 
length, they rose, and came out upon the floor of the 
barn and stood for a moment looking about them. 

Billy, the stableman, was going the rounds of the 
walls, putting out light after .light. By degrees, the vast 
interior was growing dim. Upon the roof overhead the 


282 


The Octopus 


rain drummed incessantly, the eaves dripping. The floor 
was littered with pine needles, bits of orange peel, ends 
and fragments of torn organdies and muslins and bits of 
tissue paper from the “ Phrygian Bonnets and Liberty 
Caps.’’ The buckskin mare in the stall, dozing on three 
legs, changed position with a long sigh. The sweat 
stiffening the hair upon her back and loins, as it dried, 
gave off a penetrating, ammoniacal odour that mingled 
with the stale perfume of sachet and wilted flowers. 

Presley and Vanamee stood looking at the deserted 
barn. There was a long silence. Then Presley said : 
“Well . . . what do you think of it all ? ” 

“ I think,” answered Vanamee slowly, “ I think that 
there was a dance in Brussels the night before Waterloo.” 


BOOK n 



BOOK II 


I 

In his office at San Francisco, seated before a massive 
desk of polished redwood, very ornate, Lyman Derrick 
sat dictating letters to his typewriter, on a certain morn- 
ing early in the spring of the year. The subdued mono- 
tone of his voice proceeded evenly from sentence to sen- 
tence, regular, precise, businesslike. 

‘‘ I have the honour to acknowledge herewith your 

favour of the 14th instant, and in reply would state ** 

Please find enclosed draft upon New Orleans to 
be applied as per our understanding ” 

“ In answer to your favour No. 1107, referring to the 
case of the City and County of San Francisco against 
Excelsior Warehouse & Storage Co., I would say 

His voice continued, expressionless, measured, distinct. 
While he spoke, he swung slowly back and forth in his 
leather swivel chair, his elbows resting on the arms, his 
pop eyes fixed vaguely upon the calendar on the opposite 
wall, winking at intervals when he paused, searching for 
a word. 

“ That's all for the present,'' he said at length. 

Without reply, the typewriter rose and withdrew, 
thrusting her pencil into the coil of her hair, closing the 
door behind her, softly, discreetly. 

When she had gone, Lyman rose, stretching himself, 
putting up three fingers to hide his yawn. To further 


286 


The Octopus 

loosen his muscles, he took a couple of turns the length of 
the room, noting with satisfaction its fine appointments, 
the padded red carpet, the dull olive green tint of the 
walls, the few choice engravings — ^portraits of Marshall, 
Taney, Field, and a coloured lithograph — excellently 
done — of the Grand Canon of the Colorado — the deep- 
seated leather chairs, the large and crowded bookcase 
(topped with a bust of James Lick, and a huge greenish 
globe), the waste basket of woven coloured grass, made 
by Navajo Indians, the massive silver inkstand on the 
desk, the elaborate filing cabinet, complete in every par- 
ticular, and the shelves of tin boxes, padlocked, impres- 
sive, grave, bearing the names of clients, cases and estates. 

He was between thirty-one and thirty-five years of 
age. Unlike Harran, he resembled his mother, but he 
was much darker than Annie Derrick and his eyes were 
much fuller, the eyeball protruding, giving him a pop- 
eyed, foreign expression, quite unusual and unexpected. 
His hair was black, and he wore a small, tight, pointed 
mustache, which he was in the habit of pushing delicately 
upward from the corners of his lips with the ball of his 
thumb, the little finger extended. As often as he made 
this gesture, he prefaced it with a little twisting gesture 
of the forearm in order to bring his cuff into view, and, 
in fact, this movement by itself was habitual. 

He was dressed carefully, his trousers creased, a pink 
rose in his lapel. His shoes were of patent leather, his 
cutaway coat was of very rough black cheviot, his 
double-breasted waistcoat of tan covert cloth with buttons 
of smoked pearl. An Ascot scarf — a great puff of heavy 
black silk — was at his neck, the knot transfixed by a tiny 
golden pin set off with an opal and four small diamonds. 

At one end of the room were two great windows of 
plate glass, and pausing at length before one of these, 
Lyman selected a cigarette from his curved box of 


A Story of California 287^ 

oxydized silver, lit it and stood looking down and out, 
willing to be idle for a moment, amused and interested in 
the view. 

His office was on the tenth floor of the Exchange 
Buildings a beautiful, tower-like affair of white stone, 
that stood on the corner of Market Street near its inter- 
section with Kearney, the most imposing office building 
of the city. 

Below him the city swarmed tumultuous through its 
grooves, the cable-cars starting and stopping with a gay 
jangling of bells and a strident whirring of jostled glass 
windows. Drays and carts clattered over the cobbles, 
and an incessant shuffling of thousands of feet rose from 
the pavement. Around Lotta's fountain the baskets of 
the flower sellers, crammed with chrysanthemums, violets, 
pinks, roses, lilies, hyacinths, set a brisk note of colour in 
the grey of the street. 

But to Lyman^s notion the general impression of this 
centre of the city’s life was not one of strenuous business 
activity. It was a continuous interest in small things, a 
people ever willing to be amused at trifles, refusing to 
consider serious matters — good-natured, allowing them- 
selves to be imposed upon, taking life easily — generous, 
companionable, enthusiastic ; living, as it were, from day 
to day, in a place where the luxuries of life were had 
without effort ; in a city that offered to consideration the 
restlessness of a New York, without its earnestness ; the 
serenity of a Naples, without its languor ; the romance of 
a Seville, without its picturesqueness. 

As Lyman turned from the window, about to resume 
his work, the office boy appeared at the door. 

“The man from the lithograph company, sir,” an- 
nounced the boy. 

“Well, what does he want?” demanded Lyman, add- 
ing, however, upon the instant : “ Show him in ” 


288 


The Octopus 

A young man entered, carrying a great bundle, whlctl 
he deposited on a chair, with a gasp of relief, exclaiming, 
all out of breath : 

'' From the Standard Lithograph Company/* 

What is?^’ 

'' Don’t know,” replied the other. Maps, « guess.” 

'' I don’t want any maps. Who sent them ? I guess 
you’re mistaken.” 

Lyman tore the cover from the top of the pacKage, 
drawing out one of a great many huge sheets of white 
paper, folded eight times. Suddenly, he uttered an excla- 
mation : 

''Ah, I see. They are maps. But these should not 
have come here. They are to go to the regular office for 
distribution.” He wrote a new direction on the label of 
the package : " Take them to that address,” he went on. 
" I’ll keep this one here. The others go to that address. 
If you see Mr. Darrell, tell him that Mr. Derrick — you 
get the name — Mr. Derrick may not be able to get around 
this afternoon, but to go ahead with any business just the 
same.” 

The young man departed with the package and Lyman, 
spreading out the map upon the table, remained for some 
time studying it thoughtfully. 

It was a commissioner’s official railway map of the 
State of California, completed to March 30th of that year. 
Upon it the different railways of the State were accur- 
ately plotted in various colours, blue, green, yellow. 
However, the blue, the yellow, and the green were but 
brief traceries, very short, isolated, unimportant. At a 
little distance these could hardly be seen. The whole 
map was gridironed by a vast, complicated network of 
red lines marked P. and S. W. R. R. These centralised 
at San Francisco and thence ramified and spread north, 
east, and south, to every quarter of the State. From 


289 


A Story of California 

Coles, in the topmost corner of the map, to Yuma in the 
lowest, from Reno on one side to San Francisco on the 
other, ran the plexus of red, a veritable system of blood 
circulation, complicated, dividing, and reuniting, branch- 
ing, splitting, extending, throwing out feelers, off-shoots, 
tap roots, feeders — diminutive little blood suckers that 
shot out from the main jugular and went twisting up into 
some remote county, laying hold upon some forgotten 
village or town, involving it in one of a myriad branching 
coils, one of a hundred tentacles, drawing it, as it were, 
toward that centre from which all this system sprang. 

The map was white, and it seemed as if all the colour 
which should have gone to vivify the various counties, 
towns, and cities marked upon it had been absorbed by 
that huge, sprawling organism, with its ruddy arteries 
converging to a central point. It was as though the State 
had been sucked white and colourless, and against this 
pallid background the red arteries of the monster stood 
out, swollen with life-blood, reaching out to infinity, 
gorged to bursting; an excrescence, a gigantic parasite 
fattening upon the life-blood of an entire commonwealth. 

However, in an upper corner of the map appeared the 
names of the three new commissioners : Jones McNish 
for the first district, Lyman Derrick for the second, and 
James Darrell for the third. 

Nominated in the Democratic State convention in the 
fall of the preceding year, Lyman, backed by the coteries 
of San Francisco bosses in the pay of his father's political 
committee of ranchers, had been elected together with 
Darrell, the candidate of the Pueblo and Mojave road, 
and McNish, the avowed candidate of the Pacific and 
Southwestern. Darrell was rabidly against the P. and S. 
W., McNish rabidly for it. Lyman was supposed to be 
the conservative member of the board, the ranchers' can- 
didate, it was true, and faithful to their interests, but a 


290 


The Octopus 


calm man, deliberative, swayed by no such violent emo- 
tions as his colleagues. 

Osterman’s dexterity had at last succeeded in entang- 
ling Magnus inextricably in the new politics. The fa- 
mous League, organised in the heat of passion the night 
of Annixter’s barn dance, had been consolidated all 
through the winter months. Its executive committee, of 
which Magnus was chairman, had been, through Oster- 
man’s manipulation, merged into the old committee com- 
posed of Broderson, Annixter, and himself. Promptly 
thereat he had resigned the chairmanship of this commit- 
tee, thus leaving Magnus at its head. Precisely as Oster- 
man had planned, Magnus was now one of them. The 
new committee accordingly had two objects in view : to 
resist the attempted grabbing of their lands by the Rail- 
road, and to push forward their own secret scheme of 
electing a board of railroad commissioners who should 
regulate wheat rates so as to favour the ranchers of the 
San Joaquin. The land cases were promptly taken to the 
courts and the new grading — fixing the price of the lands 
at twenty and thirty dollars an acre instead of two — bit- 
terly and stubbornly fought. But delays occurred, the 
process of the law was interminable, and in the intervals 
the committee addressed itself to the work of seating the 
“ Ranchers’ Commission,” as the projected Board of 
Commissioners came to be called. 

It was Harran who first suggested that his brother, 
Lyman, be put forward as the candidate for this district. 
At once the proposition had a great success. Lyman 
seemed made for the place. While allied by every tie 
of blood to the ranching interests, he had never been 
identified with them. He was city-bred. The Railroad 
would not be over-suspicious of him. He was a good 
lawyer, a good business man, keen, clear-headed, far- 
sighted, had already some practical knowledge of pol- 


291 


A Story of California 

itics, having served a term as assistant district attorney, 
and even at the present moment occupying the position 
of sheriff’s attorney. More than all, he was the son of 
Magnus Derrick; he could be relied upon, could be 
trusted implicitly to remain loyal to the ranchers’ cause. 

The campaign for Railroad Commissioner had been 
very interesting. At the very outset Magnus’s commit- 
tee found itself involved in corrupt politics. The pri- 
maries had to be captured at all costs and by any means, 
and when the convention assembled it was found neces- 
sary to buy outright the votes of certain delegates. The 
campaign fund raised by contributions from Magnus, 
Annixter, Broderson, and Osterman was drawn upon 
to the extent of five thousand dollars. 

Only the committee knew of this corruption. The 
League, ignoring ways and means, supposed as a matter 
of course that the campaign was honorably conducted. 

For a whole week after the consummation of this part 
of the deal, Magnus had kept to his house, refusing to be 
seen, alleging that he was ill, which was not far from 
the truth. The shame of the business, the loathing of 
what he had done, were to him things unspeakable. He 
could no longer look Harran in the face. He began a 
course of deception with his wife. More than once, he 
had resolved to break with the whole affair, resigning 
his position, allowing the others to proceed without him. 
But now it was too late. He was pledged. He had 
joined the League. He was its chief, and his defection 
might mean its disintegration at the very time when it 
needed all its strength to fight the land cases. More than 
a mere deal in bad politics was involved. There was the 
land grab. His withdrawal from an unholy cause would 
mean the weakening, perhaps the collapse, of another 
cause that he believed to be righteous as truth itself. He 
was hopelessly caufifht in the mesh. Wrong seemed in- 


292 


The Octopus 

dissolubly knitted into the texture of Right. He was 
blinded, dizzied, overwhelmed, caught in the current of 
events, and hurried along he knew not where. He re- 
signed himself. 

In the end, and after much ostentatious opposition on 
the part of the railroad heelers, Lyman was nominated 
and subsequently elected. 

When this consummation was reached Magnus, Oster- 
man, Broderson, and Annixter stared at each other. 
Their wildest hopes had not dared to fix themselves upon 
so easy a victory as this. It was not believable that the 
corporation would allow itself to be fooled so easily, 
would rush open-eyed into the trap. How had it hap- 
pened? 

Osterman, however, threw his hat into the air with 
wild whoops of delight. Old Broderson permitted him- 
self a feeble cheer. Even Magnus beamed satisfaction. 
The other members of the League, present at the time, 
shook hands all around and spoke of opening a few 
bottles on the strength of the occasion. Annixter alone 
was recalcitrant. 

** It’s too easy,” he declared. ** No, I’m not satisfied. 
Where’s Shelgrim in all this? Why don’t he show his 
hand, damn his soul? The thing is yellow, I tell you. 
There’s a big fish in these waters somewheres. I don’t 
know his name, and I don’t know his game, but he’s mov- 
ing round off and on, just out of sight. If you think 
you’ve netted him, I don't, that’s all I’ve got to say.” 

But he was jeered down as a croaker. There was the 
Commission. He couldn’t get around that, could he? 
There was Darrell and Lyman Derrick, both pledged to 
the ranches. Good Lord, he was never satisfied. He’d 
be obstinate till the very last gun was fired. Why, if he 
got drowned in a river he’d float up-stream just to be 
contrary. 


293 


A Story of California 

In the course of time, the new board was seated. For 
the first few months of its term, it was occupied in clear- 
ing up the business left over by the old board and in the 
completion of the railway map. But now, the decks 
were cleared. It was about to address itself to the con- 
sideration of a revision of the tariff for the carriage of 
grain between the San Joaquin Valley and tide-water. 

Both Lyman and Darrell were pledged to an average 
ten per cent, cut of the grain rates throughout the entire 
State. 

The typewriter returned with the letters for Lyman to 
sign, and he put away the map and took up his morning’s 
routine of business, wondering, the while, what would 
become of his practice during the time he was involved 
in the business of the Ranchers’ Railroad Commission. 

But towards noon, at the moment when Lyman was 
drawing off a glass of mineral water from the siphon 
that stood at his elbow^ there was an interruption. 
Some one rapped vigorously upon the door, which was 
immediately after opened, and Magnus and Harran came 
in, followed by Presley. 

“ Hello, hello ! ” cried Lyman, jumping up, extending 
his hands, “ why, here’s a surprise. I didn’t expect you 
all till to-night. Come in, come in and sit down. Have a 
glass of sizz-water, Governor.” 

The others explained that they had come up from 
Bonneville the night before, as the Executive Committee 
of the League had received a despatch from the lawyers 
it had retained to fight the Railroad, that the judge of 
the court in San Francisco, where the test cases were 
being tried, might be expected to hand down his decision 
the next day. 

Very soon after the announcement of the new grading 
of the ranchers’ lands, the corporation had offered, 
through S. Behrman, to lease the disputed lands to the 


294 


The Octopus 

ranchers at a nominal figure. The offer had been angrily; 
rejected, and the Railroad had put up the lands for sale 
at Ruggles’s office in Bonneville. At the exorbitant 
price named, buyers promptly appeared — dummy buyers, 
beyond shadow of doubt, acting either for the Railroad 
or for S. Behrman — men hitherto unknown in the 
county, men without property, without money, adven- 
turers, heelers. Prominent among them, and bidding 
for the railroad’s holdings included on Annixter’s ranch, 
was Delaney. 

The farce of deeding the corporation’s sections to these 
fictitious purchasers was solemnly gone through with at 
Ruggles’s office, the Railroad guaranteeing them pos- 
session. The League refused to allow the supposed 
buyers to come upon the land, and the Railroad, faithful 
to its pledge in the matter of guaranteeing its dummies 
possession, at once began suits in ejectment in the dis- 
trict court in Visalia, the county seat. 

It was the preliminary skirmish, the reconnaisance in 
force, the combatants feeling each other’s strength, will- 
ing to proceed with caution, postponing the actual death- 
grip for a while till each had strengthened its position 
and organised its forces. 

During the time the cases were on trial at Visalia, S. 
Behrman was much in evidence in and about the courts. 
The trial itself, after tedious preliminaries, was brief. 
The ranchers lost. The test cases were immediately car- 
ried up to the United States Circuit Court in San Fran- 
cisco. At the moment the decision of this court was 
pending. 

Why, this is news,” exclaimed Lyman, in response to 
the Governor’s announcement ; “ I did not expect them 
to be so prompt. I was in court only last week and there 
seemed to be no end of business ahead. I suppose you 
are very anxious ? ” 


295 


A Story of California 

Magnus nodded. He had seated himself in one of 
Lyman’s deep chairs, his grey top-hat, with its wide 
brim, on the floor beside him. His coat of black broad- 
cloth that had been tightly packed in his valise, was yet 
wrinkled and creased; his trousers were strapped under 
his high boots. As he spoke, he stroked the bridge of 
his hawklike nose with his bent forefinger. 

Leaning back in his chair, he watched his two sons 
with secret delight. To his eye, both were perfect speci- 
mens of their class, intelligent, well-looking, resource- 
ful. He was intensely proud of them. He was never 
happier, never more nearly jovial, never more erect, more 
military, more alert, and buoyant than when in the com- 
pany of his two sons. He honestly believed that no finer 
examples of young manhood existed throughout the en- 
tire nation. 

I think we should win in this court,” Harran ob- 
served, waxhing the bubbles break in his glass. “ The 
investigation has been much more complete than in the 
Visalia trial. Our case this time is too good. It has 
made too much talk. The court would not dare render 
a decision for the Railroad. Why, there’s the agreem^^t 
in black and white — and the circulars the Railroad is- 
sued. How can one get around those ? ” 

“ Well, well, we shall know in a few hours now,” re- 
marked Magnus. 

'"Oh,” exclaimed Lyman, surprised, 'Ht is for this 
morning, then. Why aren’t you at the court ? ” 

It seemed undignified, boy,” answered the Governor. 
“ We shall know soon enough.” 

Good God ! ” exclaimed Harran abruptly, when I 
think of what is involved. Why, Lyman, it’s our home, 
the ranch house itself, nearly all Los Muertos, practically 
our whole fortune, and just now when there is promise of 
an enormous crop of wheat. And it is not only us. 


296 


The Octopus 

There are over half a million acres of the San Joaquin in- 
volved. In some cases of the smaller ranches, it is the 
confiscation of the whole of the rancher’s land. If this 
thing goes through, it will absolutely beggar nearly a 
hundred men. Broderson wouldn’t have a thousand 
acres to his name. Why, it’s monstrous.” 

“ But the corporations offered to lease these lands,” 
remarked Lyman. ^'Are any of the ranchers taking up 
that offer — or are any of them buying outright ? ” 

“ Buying ! At the new figure ! ” exclaimed Harran, 
at twenty and thirty an acre ! Why, there’s not one in 
ten that can. They are land-poor. And as for leasing 
— leasing land they virtually own — no, there’s precious 
few are doing that, thank God ! That would be acknowl- 
edging the railroad’s ownership right away — forfeiting 
their rights for good. None of the Leaguers are doing it, 
I know. That would be the rankest treachery.” 

He paused for a moment, drinking the rest of the 
mineral water, then interrupting Lyman, who was about 
to speak to Presley, drawing him into the conversation 
through politeness, said: “Matters are just romping 
right along to a crisis these days. It’s a make or break 
for the wheat growers of the State now, no mistake. 
Here are the land cases and the new grain tariff drawing 
to a head at about the same time. If we win our land 
cases, there’s your new freight rates to be applied, and 
then all is beer and skittles. Won’t the San Joaquin go 
wild if we pull it off, and I believe we will.” 

“ How we wheat growers are exploited and trapped 
and deceived at every turn,” observed Magnus sadly. 
“ The courts, the capitalists, the railroads, each of them 
in turn hoodwinks us into some new and wonderful 
scheme, only to betray us in the end. Well,” he added, 
turning to Lyman, “ one thing at least we can depend on. 
We will cut their grain rates for them, eh, Lyman ? ” 


A Story of California 297 

Lyman crossed his legs and settled himself in his of- 
fice chair. 

‘'I have wanted to have a talk with you about that, 
sir,’' he said. “ Yes, we will cut the rates — an average 
10 per cent, cut throughout the State, as we are pledged. 
But I am going to warn you. Governor, and you, Har- 
ran ; don’t expect too much at first. The man who, even 
after twenty years’ training in the operation of railroads, 
can draw an equitable, smoothly working schedule of 
freight rates between shipping point and common point, 
is capable of governing the United States. What with 
main lines, and leased lines, and points of transfer, and 
the laws governing common carriers, and the rulings of 
the Inter-State Commerce Commission, the whole mat- 
ter has become so confused that Vanderbilt himself 
couldn’t straighten it out. And how can it be expected 
that railroad commissions who are chosen — well, let’s be 
frank — ^as ours was, for instance, from out a number of 
men who don’t know the difference between a switching 
charge and a differential rate, are going to regulate the 
whole business in six months’ time ? Cut rates ; yes, any 
fool can do that ; any fool can write one dollar instead of 
two, but if you cut too low by a fraction of one per cent, 
and if the railroad can get out an injunction, tie you up 
and show that your new rate prevents the road being 
operated at a profit, how are you any better off? ” 

Your conscientiousness does you credit, Lyman,” said 
the Governor. respect you for it, my son. I know 
you will be fair to the railroad. That is all we want. 
Fairness to the corporation is fairness to the farmer, and 
we won’t expect you to readjust the whole matter out 
of hand. Take your time. We can afford to wait.” 

And suppose the next commission is a railroad 
board, and reverses all our figures ? ” 

The one-time mining king, the most redoubtable poker 


298 


The Octopus 


player of Calaveras County, permitted himself a mo- 
mentary twinkle of his eyes. 

“ By then it will be too late. We will, all of us, have 
made our fortunes by then.” 

The remark left Presley astonished out of all meas- 
ure. He never could accustom himself to these strange 
lapses in the Governor’s character. Magnus was by na- 
ture a public man, judicious, deliberate, standing firm 
for principle, yet upon rare occasion, by some such re- 
mark as this, he would betray the presence of a sub- 
nature of recklessness, inconsistent, all at variance with 
his creeds and tenets. 

At the very bottom, when all was said and done, Mag- 
nus remained the Forty-niner. Deep down in his heart 
the spirit of the Adventurer yet persisted. “We will all 
of us have made fortunes by then.” That was it pre- 
cisely. “ After us the deluge.” For all his public spirit, 
for all his championship of justice and truth, his respect 
for law, Magnus remained the gambler, willing to play 
for colossal stakes, to hazard a fortune on the chance of 
winning a million. It was the true California spirit 
that found expression through him, the spirit of the 
West, unwilling to occupy itself with details, refusing to 
wait, to be patient, to achieve by legitimate plodding; 
the miner’s instinct of wealth acquired in a single night 
prevailed, in spit^ of all. It was in this frame of mind 
that Magnus and the multitude of other ranchers of 
whom he was a type, farmed their ranches. They had no 
love for their land. They were not attached to the soil. 
They worked their ranches as a quarter of a century be- 
fore they had worked their mines. To husband the re- 
sources of their marvellous San Joaquin, they considered 
niggardly, petty, Hebraic. To get all there was out of 
the land, to squeeze it dry, to exhaust it, seemed their 
policy. When, at last, the land worn out, would refuse 


A Story of California 299 

to yield, they would invest their money in something 
else; by then, they would all have made fortunes. They 
did not care. “ After us the deluge.’' 

Lyman, however, was obviously uneasy, willing to 
change the subject. He rose to his feet, pulling down 
his cuffs. 

“ By the way,” he observed, I want you three to 
lunch with me to-day at my club. It is close by. You 
can wait there for news of the court’s decision as well 
as anywhere else, and I should like to show you the 
place. I have just joined.” 

At the club, when the four men were seated at a 
small table in the round window of the main room, 
Lyman’s popularity with all classes was very apparent. 
Hardly a man entered that did not call out a salutation 
to him, some even coming over to shake his hand. He 
seemed to be every man’s friend, and to all he seemed 
equally genial. His affability, even to those whom he 
disliked, was unfailing. 

“ See that fellow yonder,” he said to Magnus, indi- 
cating a certain middle-aged man, flamboyantly dressed, 
who wore his hair long, who was afflicted with sore eyes, 
and the collar of whose velvet coat was sprinkled with 
dandruff, ‘‘ that’s Hartrath, the artist, a man absolutely 
devoid of even the commonest decency. How he got in 
here is a mystery to me.” 

Yet, when this Hartrath came across to say “ How do 
you do ” to Lyman, Lyman was as eager in his cordiality 
as his warmest friend could have expected. 

Why the devil are you so chummy with him, then ? ” 
observed Harran when Hartrath had gone away. 

Lyman’s explanation was vague. The truth of the 
matter was, that Magnus’s oldest son was consumed by 
inordinate ambition. Political preferment was his dream, 
and to the realisation of this dream popularity was an 


300 The Octopus 

essential. Every man who could vote, blackguard or 
gentleman, was to be conciliated, if possible. He made it 
his study to become known throughout the entire com- 
munity — ^to put influential men under obligations to him- 
self. He never forgot a name or a face. With every- 
body he was the hail-fellow-well-met. His ambition was 
not trivial. In his disregard for small things, he resem- 
bled his father. Municipal office had no attraction for 
him. His goal was higher. He had planned his life 
twenty years ahead. Already Sheriff’s Attorney, Assist- 
ant District Attorney and Railroad Commissioner, he 
could, if he desired, attain the office of District Attorney 
itself. Just now, it was a question with him whether or 
not it would be politic to fill this office. Would it ad- 
vance or sidetrack him in the career he had outlined for 
himself? Lyman wanted to be something better than 
District Attorney, better than Mayor, than State Sen- 
ator, or even than member of the United States Congress. 
He wanted to be, in fact, what his father was only in 
name — to succeed where Magnus had failed. He wanted 
to be governor of the State. He had put his teeth to- 
gether, and, deaf to all other considerations, blind to all 
other issues, he worked with the infinite slowness, the 
unshakable tenacity of the coral insect to this one end. 

After luncheon was over, Lyman ordered cigars and 
liqueurs, and with the three others returned to the main 
room of the club. However, their former place in the 
round window was occupied. A middle-aged man, with 
iron grey hair and moustache, who wore a frock coat and 
a white waistcoat, and in some indefinable manner sug- 
gested a retired naval officer, was sitting at their table 
smoking a long, thin cigar. At sight of him, Presley 
became animated. He uttered a mild exclamation: 

Why, isn’t that Mr. Cedarquist ? ” 

** Cedarquist ? ” repeated Lyman Derrick. ** I know 


A Story of California 301 

him well. Yes, of course, it is,” he continued. Gov- 
ernor, you must know him. He is one of our representa- 
tive men. You would enjoy talking to him. He was 
the head of the big Atlas Iron Works. They have shut 
down recently, you know. Not failed exactly, but just 
ceased to be a paying investment, and Cedarquist closed 
them out. He has other interests, though. He’s a rich 
man — a capitalist.” 

Lyman brought the group up to the gentleman in ques- 
tion and introduced them. 

Mr. Magnus Derrick, of course,” observed Cedar- 
quist, as he took the Governor’s hand. “ I’ve known you 
by repute for some time, sir. This is a great pleasure, I 
assure you.” Then, turning to Presley, he added: 

Hello, Pres, my boy. How is the great, the very great 
Poem getting on ? ” 

It’s not getting on at all, sir,” answered Presley, in 
some embarrassment, as they all sat down. “ In fact, 
I’ve about given up the idea. There’s so much interest in 
what you might call ' living issues ’ down at Los Muertos 
now, that I’m getting further and further from it every 
day.” 

I should say as much,” remarked the manufacturer, 
turning towards Magnus. ‘T’m watching your fight with 
Shelgrim, Mr. Derrick, with every degree of interest.” 
He raised his drink of whiskey and soda. “ Here’s suc- 
cess to you.” 

As he replaced his glass, the artist Hartrath joined 
the group uninvited. As a pretext, he engaged Lyman 
in conversation. Lyman, he believed, was a man with 
a pull ” at the City Hall. In connection with a projected 
Million-Dollar Fair and Flower Festival, which at that 
moment was the talk of the city, certain statues were to 
be erected, and Hartrath bespoke Lyman’s influence to 
further the pretensions of a sculptor friend of his, who 


302 


The Octopus 

wished to be Art Director of the affair. In the matter of 
this Fair and Flower Festival, Hartrath was not lacking 
in enthusiasm. He addressed the others with extrava- 
gant gestures, blinking his inflamed eyelids. 

“ A million dollars,” he exclaimed. Hey ! think of 
that. Why, do you know that we have five hundred 
thousand practically pledged already? Talk about pub- 
lic spirit, gentlemen, this is the most public-spirited city 
on the continent. And the money is not thrown away. 
We will have Eastern visitors here by the thousands — 
capitalists — men with money to invest. The million we 
spend on our fair will be money in our pockets. Ah, 
you should see how the women of this city are taking 
hold of the matter. They are giving all kinds of little 
entertainments, teas, ' Olde Tyme Singing Skules,’ ama- 
teur theatricals, gingerbread fetes, all for the benefit of 
the fund, and the business men, too — pouring out their 
money like water. It is splendid, splendid, to see a com- 
munity so patriotic.” 

The manufacturer, Cedarquist, fixed the artist with a 
glance of melancholy interest. 

“ And how much,” he remarked, “ will they contrib- 
ute — your gingerbread women and public-spirited capi- 
talists, towards the blowing up of the ruins of the Atlas 
Iron Works? ” 

Blowing up ? I don’t understand,” murmured the 
artist, surprised. 

When you get your Eastern capitalists out here with 
your Million-Dollar Fair,” continued Cedarquist, ‘‘you- 
don’t propose, do you, to let them see a Million-Dollar 
Iron Foundry standing idle, because of the indifference 
of San Francisco business men? They might ask perti- 
nent questions, your capitalists, and we should have to 
answer that our business men preferred to invest their 
money in corner lots and government bonds, rather than 


303 


A Story of California 

to back up a legitimate, industrial enterprise. We don't 
want fairs. We want active furnaces. We don’t want 
public statues, and fountains, and park extensions and 
gingerbread fetes. We want business enterprise. Isn’t 
it like us ? Isn’t it like us ? ” he exclaimed sadly. “ What 
a melancholy comment! San Francisco! It is not a city 
— it is a Midway Plaisance. California likes to be 
fooled. Do you suppose Shelgrim could convert the 
whole San Joaquin Valley into his back yard otherwise? 
Indifference to public affairs — absolute indifference, it 
stamps us all. Our State is the very paradise of fakirs. 
You and your Million-Dollar Fair ! ” He turned to 
Hartrath with a quiet smile. “ It is just such men as 
you, Mr. Hartrath, that are the ruin of us. You organise 
a sham of tinsel and pasteboard, put on fool’s cap and 
bells, beat a gong at a street corner, and the crowd 
cheers you and drops nickels into your hat. Your ginger- 
bread fHe; yes, I saw it in full blast the other night on 
the grounds of one of your women’s places on Sutter 
Street. I was on my way home from the last board 
meeting of the Atlas Company. A gingerbread fete, 
my God ! and the Atlas plant shutting down for want of 
financial backing. A million dollars spent to attract the 
Eastern investor, in order to show him an abandoned 
rolling mill, wherein the only activity is the sale of rem- 
nant material and scrap steel.” 

Lyman, however, interfered. The situation was be- 
coming strained. He tried to conciliate the three men — 
the artist, the manufacturer, and the farmer, the warring 
elements. But Hartrath, unwilling to face the enmity 
that he felt accumulating against him, took himself away. 
A picture of his — A Study of the Contra Costa Foot- 
hills ” — was to be raffled in the club rooms for the benefit 
of the Fair. He, himself, was in charge of the matter. 
He disappeared. 


304 


The Octopus 

Cedarquist looked after him with contemplative in- 
terest. Then, turning to Magnus, excused himself for 
the acridity of his words. 

'' He’s no worse than many others, and the people 
of this State and city are, after all, only a little more 
addle-headed than other Americans.” It was his 
favourite topic. Sure of the interest of his hearers, he 
unburdened himself. 

“If I were to name the one crying evil of American 
life, Mr. Derrick,” he continued, “it would be the in- 
difference of the better people to public affairs. It is so 
in all our great centres. There are other great trusts, 
God knows, in the United States besides our own dear P. 
and S.W. Railroad. Every State has its own grievance. 
If it is not a railroad trust, it is a sugar trust, or an oil 
trust, or an industrial trust, that exploits the People, 
because the People allow it. The indifference of the 
People is the opportunity of the despot. It is as true 
as that the whole is greater than the part, and the maxim 
is so old that it is trite — it is laughable. It is neglected 
and disused for the sake of some new ingenious and 
complicated theory, some wonderful scheme of reorgan- 
isation, but the fact remains, nevertheless, simple, funda- 
mental, everlasting. The People have but to say ‘ No,’ 
and not the strongest tyranny, political, religious, or 
financial, that was ever organised, could survive one 
week.” 

The others, absorbed, attentive, approved, nodding 
their heads in silence as the manufacturer finished. 

“ That’s one reason, Mr. Derrick,” the other resumed 
after a moment, “ why I have been so glad to meet you. 
You and your League are trying to say ‘ No ’ to the 
trust. I hope you will succeed. If your example will 
rally the People to your cause, you will. Otherwise—’* 
he shook his head. 


305 


A Story of California 

“ One stage of the fight is to be passed this very day/’ 
observed Magnus. My sons and myself are expecting 
hourly news from the City Hall, a decision in our case 
is pending.” 

“We are both of us fighters, it seems, Mr. Derrick,” 
said Cedarquist. “ Each with his particular enemy. We 
are well met, indeed, the farmer and the manufacturer, 
both in the same grist between the two millstones of the 
lethargy of the Public and the aggression of the Trust, 
the two great evils of modern America. Pres, my boy, 
there is your epic poem ready to hand.” 

But Cedarquist was full of another idea. Rarely did 
so favourable an opportunity present itself for explain- 
ing his theories, his ambitions. Addressing himself to 
Magnus, he continued: 

“ Fortunately for myself, the Atlas Company was not 
my only investment. I have other interests. The build- 
ing of ships — steel sailing ships — has been an ambition 
of mine, — for this purpose, Mr. Derrick, to carry Ameri- 
can wheat. For years, I have studied this question of 
American wheat, and at last, I have arrived at a theory. 
Let me explain. At present, all our California wheat 
goes to Liverpool, and from that port is distributed over 
the world. But a change is coming. I am sure of it. 
You young men,” he turned to Presley, Lyman, and Har- 
ran, “ will live to see it. Our century is about done. The 
great word of this nineteenth century has been Produc- 
tion. The great word of the twentieth century will be — 
listen to me, you youngsters — Markets. As a market for 
our Production — or let me take a concrete example — as 
a market for our Wheats Europe is played out. Popula- 
tion in Europe is not increasing fast enough to keep up 
with the rapidity of our production. In some cases, as 
in France, the population is stationary. We, however, 
have gone on producing wheat at a tremendous rate. 


20 


3o6 


The Octopus 


The result is over-production. We supply more than 
Europe can eat, and down go the prices. The remedy 
is not in the curtailing of our wheat areas, but in this, we 
must have nezv markets, greater markets. For years we 
have been sending our wheat from East to West, from 
California to Europe. But the time will come when we 
must send it from West to East. We must march with 
the course of empire, not against it. I mean, we must 
look to China. Rice in China is losing its nutritive qual- 
ity. The Asiatics, though, must be fed; if not on rice, 
then on wheat. Why, Mr. Derrick, if only one-half the 
population of China ate a half ounce of flour per man 
per day all the wheat areas in California could not feed 
them. Ah, if I could only hammer that into the brains 
of every rancher of the San Joaquin, yes, and of every 
owner of every bonanza farm in Dakota and Minnesota. 
Send your wheat to China; handle it yourselves; do 
away with the middleman; break up the Chicago wheat 
pits and elevator rings and mixing houses. When in 
feeding China you have decreased the European ship- 
ments, the effect is instantaneous. Prices go up in Eu- 
rope without having the least effect upon the prices in 
China. We hold the key, we have the wheat, — infinitely 
more than we ourselves can eat. Asia and Europe must 
look to America to be fed. What fatuous neglect of 
opportunity to continue to deluge Europe with our sur- 
plus food when the East trembles upon the verge of 
starvation ! ” 

The two men, Cedarquist and Magnus, continued the 
conversation a little further. The manufacturer’s idea 
was new to the Governor. He was greatly interested. 
He withdrew from the conversation. Thoughtful, he 
leaned back in his place, stroking the bridge of his beak- 
like nose with a crooked forefinger. 

Cedarquist turned to Harran and began asking details 


A Story of California 307 

as to the conditions of the wheat growers of the San 
Joaquin. Lyman still maintained an attitude of polite 
aloofness, yawning occasionally behind three fingers, and 
Presley was left to the company of his own thoughts. 

There had been a day when the affairs and gri©»^ances 
of the farmers of his acquaintance — Magnus, Annixter, 
Osterman, and old Broderson — had filled him only with 
disgust. His mind full of a great, vague epic poem 
of the West, he had kept himself apart, disdainful of 
what he chose to consider their petty squabbles. But the 
scene in Annixter’s harness room had thrilled and up- 
lifted him. He was palpitating with excitement all 
through the succeeding months. He abandoned the idea 
of an epic poem. In six months he had not written a 
single verse. Day after day he trembled with excite- 
ment as the relations between the Trust and League be- 
came more and more strained. He saw the matter in its 
true light. It was typical. It was the world-old war 
between Freedom and Tyranny, and at times his hatred 
of the railroad shook him like a crisp and withered 
reed, while the languid indifference of the people of 
the State to the quarrel filled him with a blind exas- 
peration. 

But, as he had once explained to Vanamee, he must 
find expression. He felt that he would suffocate other- 
wise. He had begun to keep a journal. As the inclina- 
tion spurred him, he wrote down his thoughts and ideas 
in this, sometimes every day, sometimes only three or 
four times a month. Also he flung aside his books of 
poems — Milton, Tennyson, Browning, even Homer — 
and addressed himself to Mill, Malthus, Young, Poush- 
kin, Henry George, Schopenhauer. He attacked the sub- 
ject of Social Inequality with unbounded enthusiasm. 
He devoured, rather than read, and emerged from the af- 
fair, his mind a confused jumble of conflicting notions, 


3o8 


The Octopus 

sick with over-effort, raging against injustice and op- 
pression, and with not one sane suggestion as to remedy 
or redress. 

The butt of his cigarette scorched his fingers and 
roused him from his brooding. In the act of lighting 
another, he glanced across the room and was surprised to 
see two very prettily dressed young women in the com- 
pany of an older gentleman, in a long frock coat, stand- 
ing before Hartrath’s painting, examining it, their heads 
upon one side. 

Presley uttered a murmur of surprise. He, himself, 
was a member of the club, and the presence of women 
within its doors, except on special occasions, was not 
tolerated. He turned to Lyman Derrick for an explana- 
tion, but this other had also seen the women and ab- 
ruptly exclaimed : 

I declare, I had forgotten about it. Why, this is 
Ladies^ Day, of course.^^ 

“Why, yes,’" interposed Cedarquist, glancing at the 
women over his shoulder. “ Didn’t you know ? They let 
’em in twice a year, you remember, and this is a double 
occasion. They are going to raffle Hartrath’s picture, — 
for the benefit of the Gingerbread Fair. Why, you are 
not up to date, Lyman. This is a sacred and religious 
rite, — an important public event.” 

“ Of course, of course,” murmured Lyman. He found 
means to survey Harran and Magnus. Certainly, neither 
his father nor his brother were dressed for the function 
that impended. He had been stupid. Magnus invariably 
attracted attention, and now with his trousers strapped 
under his boots, his wrinkled frock coat — Lyman twisted 
his cuffs into sight with an impatient, nervous move- 
ment of his wrists, glancing a second time at his brother’s 
pink face, forward curling, yellow hair and clothes of a 
country cut. But there was no help for it. He wondered 


A Story of California 309 

what were the club regulations in the matter of bringing 
in visitors on Ladies’ Day. 

'' Sure enough, Ladies’ Day,” he remarked, '' I am very 
glad you struck it, Governor. We can sit right where 
we are. I guess this is as good a place as any to see the 
crowd. It’s a good chance to see all the big guns of the 
city. Do you expect your people here, Mr. Cedarquist? ” 

'' My wife may come, and my daughters,” said the 
manufacturer. 

'"Ah,” murmured Presley, ''so much the better. I 
was going to give myself the pleasure of calling upon 
your daughters, Mr. Cedarquist, this afternoon.” 

" You can save your carfare. Pres,” said Cedarquist, 
" you will see them here.” 

No doubt, the invitations for the occasion had ap- 
pointed one o’clock as the time, for between that hour 
and two, the guests arrived in an almost unbroken 
stream. From their point of vantage in the round win- 
dow of the main room, Magnus, his two sons, and Pres- 
ley looked on very interested. Cedarquist had excused 
himself, affirming that he must look out for his women 
folk. 

Of every ten of the arrivals, seven, at least, were ladies. 
They entered the room — this unfamiliar masculine 
haunt, where their husbands, brothers, and sons spent so 
much of their time — with a certain show of hesitancy 
and little, nervous, oblique glances, moving their heads 
from side to side like a file of hens venturing into a 
strange barn. They came in groups, ushered by a single 
member of the club, doing the honours with effusive 
bows and polite gestures, indicating the various objects 
of interest, pictures, busts, and the like, that decorated 
the room. 

Fresh from his recollections of Bonneville, Guadala- 
jara, and the dance in Annixter’s barn, Presley was as- 


310 


The Octopus 


tonished at the beauty of these women and the elegance 
of their toilettes. The crowd thickened rapidly. A mur- 
mur of conversation arose, subdued, gracious, mingled 
with the soft rustle of silk, grenadines, velvet. The scent 
of delicate perfumes spread in the air, Violet de Parme, 
Peau d’Espagne. Colours of the most harmonious blends 
appeared and disappeared at intervals in the slowly mov- 
ing press, touches of lavender-tinted velvets, pale violet 
crepes and cream-coloured appliqued laces. 

There seemed to be no need of introductions. Every- 
body appeared to be acquainted. There was no awk- 
wardness, no constraint. The assembly disengaged an 
impression of refined pleasure. On every hand, innumer- 
able dialogues seemed to go forward easily and naturally, 
without break or interruption, witty, engaging, the 
couple never at a loss for repartee. A third party was 
gracefully included, then a fourth. Little groups were 
formed, — groups that divided themselves, or melted into 
other groups, or disintegrated again into isolated pairs, 
or lost themselves in the background of the mass, — ^all 
without friction, without embarrassment, — the whole af- 
fair going forward of itself, decorous, tactful, well-bred. 

At a distance, and not too loud, a stringed orchestra 
sent up a pleasing hum. Waiters, with brass buttons on 
their full dress coats, went from group to group, silent, 
unobtrusive, serving salads and ices. 

But the focus of the assembly was the little space be- 
fore Hartrath’s painting. It was called “ A Study of the 
Contra Costa Foothills,’^ and was set in a frame of nat- 
ural redwood, the bark still adhering. It was conspicu- 
ously displayed on an easel at the right of the entrance to 
the main room of the club, and was very large. In the 
foreground, and to the left, under the shade of a live-oak, 
stood a couple of reddish cows, knee-deep in a patch of 
yellow poppies, while in the right-hand comer, to bal- 


A Story of California 31 1 

ance the composition, was placed a girl in a pink dress 
and white sunbonnet, in which the shadows were indi- 
cated by broad dashes of pale blue paint. The ladies and 
young girls examined the production with little murmurs 
of admiration, hazarding remembered phrases, searching 
for the exact balance between generous praise and criti- 
cal discrimination, expressing their opinions in the mild 
technicalities of the Art Books and painting classes. 
They spoke of atmospheric effects, of middle distance, of 
‘‘ chiaro-oscuroy’ of fore-shortening, of the decomposition 
of light, of the subordination of individuality to fidelity 
of interpretation. 

One tall girl, with hair almost white in its blondness, 
having observed that the handling of the masses re- 
minded her strongly of Corot, her companion, who car- 
ried a gold lorgnette by a chain around her neck, an- 
swered : 

“ Ah ! Millet, perhaps, but not Corot.’’ 

This verdict had an immediate success. It was passed 
from group to group. It seemed to imply a delicate dis- 
tinction that carried conviction at once. It was decided 
formally that the reddish brown cows in the picture were 
reminiscent of Daubigny, and that the handling of the 
masses was altogether Millet, but that the general effect 
was not quite Corot. 

Presley, curious to see the painting that was the sub- 
ject of so much discussion, had left the group in the 
round window, and stood clgse by Hartrath, craning his 
head over the shoulders of the crowd, trying to catch a 
glimpse of the reddish cows, the milk-maid and the blue 
painted foothills. He was suddenly aware of Cedarquist’s 
voice in his ear, and, turning about, found himself face 
to face with the manufacturer, his wife and his two 
daughters. 

There was a meeting. Salutations were exchanged, 


312 


The Octopus 

Presley shaking hands all around, expressing his delight 
at seeing his old friends once more, for he had known 
the family from his boyhood, Mrs. Cedarquist being his 
aunt. Mrs. Cedarquist and her two daughters declared 
that the air of Los Muertos must certainly have done him 
a world of good. He was stouter, there could be no 
doubt of it. A little pale, perhaps. He was fatiguing 
himself with his writing, no doubt. Ah, he must take 
care. Health was everything, after all. Had he been 
writing any more verse ? Every month they scanned the 
magazines, looking for his name. 

Mrs. Cedarquist was a fashionable woman, the presi- 
dent or chairman of a score of clubs. She was forever 
running after fads, appearing continually in the society 
wherein she moved with new and astounding proteges — 
fakirs whom she unearthed no one knew where, discov- 
ering them long in advance of her companions. Now it 
was a Russian Countess, with dirty finger nails, who trav- 
elled throughout America and borrowed money ; now an 
.Esthete who possessed a wonderful collection of topaz 
gems, who submitted decorative schemes for the interior 
arrangement of houses and who “ received ” in Mrs. 
Cedarquist’s drawing-rooms dressed in a white velvet cas- 
sock ; now a widow of some Mohammedan of Bengal or 
Rajputana, who had a blue spot in the middle of her 
forehead and who solicited contributions for her sisters 
in affliction; now a certain bearded poet, recently back 
from the Klondike; now a decayed musician who had 
been ejected from a young ladies’ musical conservatory 
of Europe because of certain surprising pamphlets on 
free love, and who had come to San Francisco to intro- 
duce the community to the music of Brahms; now a 
Japanese youth who wore spectacles and a grey flannel 
shirt and who, at intervals, delivered himself of the most 
astonishing poems, vague, unrhymed, unmetrical lucu- 


313 


A Story of California 

brations, incoherent, bizarre; now a Christian Scientist, 
a lean, grey woman, whose creed was neither Christian 
nor scientific ; now a university professor, with the brist- 
ling beard of an anarchist chief-of-section, and a roaring, 
guttural voice, whose intenseness left him gasping and 
apoplectic ; now a civilised Cherokee with a mission ; now 
a female elocutionist, whose forte was Byron's Songs of 
Greece; now a high caste Chinaman; now a miniature 
painter; now a tenor, a pianiste, a mandolin player, a 
missionary, a drawing master, a virtuoso, a collector, an 
Armenian, a botanist with a new flower, a critic with a 
new theory, a doctor with a new treatment. 

And all these people had a veritable mania for declama- 
tion and fancy dress. The Russian Countess gave talks 
on the prisons of Siberia, wearing the headdress and 
pinchbeck ornaments of a Slav bride ; the .Esthete, in his 
white cassock, gave readings on obscure questions of art 
and ethics. The widow of India, in the costume of her 
caste, described the social life of her people at home. The 
bearded poet, perspiring in furs and boots of reindeer 
skin, declaimed verses of his own composition about the 
wild life of the Alaskan mining camps. The Japanese 
youth, in the silk robes of the Samurai two-sworded 
nobles, read from his own works — ‘‘The flat-bordered 
earth, nailed down at night, rusting under the darkness," 
“ The brave, upright rains that came down like errands 
from iron-bodied yore-time." The Christian Scientist, in 
funereal, impressive black, discussed the contra-will and 
pan-psychic hylozoism. The university professor put on 
a full dress suit and lisle thread gloves at three in the 
afternoon and before literary clubs and circles bellowed 
extracts from Goethe and Schiler in the German, shak- 
ing his fists, purple with vehemence. The Cherokee, ar- 
rayed in fringed buckskin and blue beads, rented from a 
costumer, intoned folk songs of his people in the vernacu- 


314 


The Octopus 


lar. The elocutionist in cheese-cloth toga and tin brace- 
lets, rendered “ The Isles of Greece, where burning Sap- 
pho loved and sung.” The Chinaman, in the robes of a 
mandarin, lectured on Confucius. The Armenian, in fez 
and baggy trousers, spoke of the Unspeakable Turk. The 
mandolin player, dressed like a bull fighter, held mu- 
sical conversaziones f interpreting the peasant songs of 
Andalusia. 

It was the Fake, the eternal, irrepressible Sham; glib, 
nimble, ubiquitous, tricked out in all the paraphernalia 
of imposture, an endless defile of charlatans that passed 
interminably before the gaze of the city, marshalled by 
“ lady presidents,” exploited by clubs of women, by liter- 
ary societies, reading circles, and culture organisations. 
The attention the Fake received, the time devoted to it, 
the money which it absorbed, were incredible. It was all 
one that impostor after impostor was exposed ; it was all 
one that the clubs, the circles, the societies were proved 
beyond doubt to have been swindled. The more the Phil- 
istine press of the city railed and guyed, the more the 
women rallied to the defence of their protege of the hour. 
That their favourite was persecuted, was to them a 
veritable rapture. Promptly they invested the apostle of 
culture with the glamour of a martyr. 

The fakirs worked the community as shell-game trick- 
sters work a county fair, departing with bursting pocket- 
books, passing on the word to the next in line, assured 
that the place was not worked out, knowing well that 
there was enough for all. 

More frequently the public of the city, unable to think 
of more than one thing at one time, prostrated itself at the 
feet of a single apostle, but at other moments, such as the 
present, when a Flower Festival or a Million-Dollar Fair 
aroused enthusiasm in all quarters, the occasion was one 
of gala for the entire Fake. The decayed professors, 


A Story of California 315 

virtuosi, litterateurs, and artists thronged to the place cn 
masse. Their clamour filled all the air. On every hand 
one heard the scraping of violins, the tinkling of mando- 
lins, the suave accents of “art talks,” the incoherencies 
of poets, the declamation of elocutionists, the inarticulate 
wanderings of the Japanese, the confused mutterings of 
the Cherokee, the guttural bellowing of the German uni- 
versity professor, all in the name of the Million-Dollar 
Fair. Money to the extent of hundreds of thousands 
was set in motion. 

Mrs. Cedarquist was busy from morning until night. 
One after another, she was introduced to newly arrived 
fakirs. To each poet, to each litterateur, to each profes- 
sor she addressed the same question : 

“ How long have you known you had this power ? ” 

She spent her days in one quiver of excitement and 
jubilation. She was “ in the movement.” The people 
of the city were awakening to a Realisation of the Beauti- 
ful, to a sense of the higher needs of life. This was Art, 
this was Literature, this was Culture and Refinement. 
The Renaissance had appeared in the West. 

She was a short, rather stout, red-faced, very much 
over-dressed little woman of some fifty years. She was 
rich in her own name, even before her marriage, being a 
relative of Shelgrim himself and on familiar terms with 
the great financier and his family. Her husband, while 
deploring the policy of the railroad, saw no good reason 
for quarrelling with Shelgrim, and on more than one 
occasion had dined at his house. 

On this occasion, delighted that she had come upon a 
“ minor poet,” she insisted upon presenting him to Hart- 
rath. 

“ You two should have so much in common,” she ex- 
plained. 

Presley shook the flaccid hand of the artist, murmur- 


3 1 6 The Octopus 

ing conventionalities, while Mrs. Cedarquist hastened to 
say : 

I am sure you know Mr. Presley's verse, Mr. Hart- 
rath. You should, believe me. You two have much in 
common. I can see so much that is alike in your modes 
of interpreting nature. In Mr. Presley’s sonnet, * The 
Better Part,’ there is the same note as in your picture, 
the same sincerity of tone, the same subtlety of touch, the 
same nuances, — ah.” 

''Oh, my dear Madame,” murmured the artist, inter- 
rupting Presley’s impatient retort ; " I am a mere bun- 
gler. You don’t mean quite that, I am sure. I am too 
sensitive. It is my cross. Beauty,” he closed his sore eyes 
with a little expression of pain, " beauty unmans me.” 

But Mrs. Cedarquist was not listening. Her eyes were 
fixed on the artist’s luxuriant hair, a thick and glossy 
mane, that all but covered his coat collar. 

" Leonine ! ” she murmured — " leonine ! Like Sam- 
son of old.” 

However, abruptly bestirring herself, she exclaimed a 
second later: 

" But I must run away. I am selling tickets for you 
this afternoon, Mr. Hartrath. I am having such suc- 
cess. Twenty-five already. Mr. Presley, you will take 
two chances, I am sure, and, oh, by the way, I have such 
good news. You know I am one of the lady members of 
the subscription committee for our Fair, and you know 
we approached Mr. Shelgrim for a donation to help 
along. Oh, such a liberal patron, a real Lorenzo di’ Med- 
ici. In the name of the Pacific and Southwestern he has 
subscribed, think of it, five thousand dollars ; and yet they 
will talk of the meanness of the railroad.” 

" Possibly it is to his interest,” murmured Presley. 
" The fairs and festivals bring people to the city over 
his railroad.” 


317 


A Story of California 

But the others turned on him, expostulating. 

Ah, you Philistine,” declared Mrs. Cedarquist. And 
this from you, Presley; to attribute such base mo- 
tives ” 

If the poets become materialised, Mr. Presley,” de- 
clared Hartrath, what can we say to the people ? ” 

“ And Shelgrim encourages your million-dollar fairs 
and fHes” said a voice at Presley’s elbow, “ because it is 
throwing dust in the people’s eyes.” 

The group turned about and saw Cedarquist, who had 
come up unobserved in time to catch the drift of the talk. 
But he spoke without bitterness ; there was even a good- 
humoured twinkle in his eyes. 

'' Yes,” he continued, smiling, '' our dear Shelgrim pro- 
motes your fairs, not only as Pres says, because it Is 
money in his pocket, but because it amuses the people, 
distracts their attention from the doings of his railroad. 
When Beatrice was a baby and had little colics, I used to 
jingle my keys in front of her nose, and it took h«.* atten- 
tion from the pain in her tummy; so Shelgrim.” 

The others laughed good-humouredly, protesting, 
nevertheless, and Mrs. Cedarquist shook her finger in 
warning at the artist and exclaimed: 

“ The Philistines be upon thee, Samson ! ” 

“ By the way,” observed Hartrath, willing to change 
the subject, “ I hear you are on the Famine Relief Com- 
mittee. Does your work progress ? ” 

“ Oh, most famously, I assure you,” she said. “ Such 
a movement as we have started. Those poor creatures. 
The photographs of them are simply dreadful. I had 
the committee to luncheon the other day and we passed 
them around. We are getting subscriptions from all over 
the State, and Mr. Cedarquist is to arrange for the ship.” 

The Relief Committee in question was one of a great 
number that had been formed in California — and all over 


3i 8 The Octopus 

the Union, for the matter of that — to provide relief for 
the victims of a great famine in Central India. The whole 
world had been struck with horror at the reports of suf- 
fering and mortality in the affected districts, and had 
hastened to send aid. Certain women of San Francisco, 
with Mrs. Cedarquist at their head, had organised a 
number of committees, but the manufacturer’s wife 
turned the meetings of these committees into social af- 
fairs — luncheons, teas, where one discussed the ways and 
means of assisting the starving Asiatics over teacups and 
plates of salad. 

Shortly afterward a mild commotion spread through- 
out the assemblage of the club’s guests. The drawing of 
the numbers in the raffle was about to be made. Hart- 
rath, in a flurry of agitation, excused himself. Cedar- 
quist took Presley by the arm. 

“ Pres, let’s get out of this,” he said. “ Come into the 
wine room and I will shake you for a glass of sherry.” 

They had some difficulty in extricating themselves. 
The main room where the drawing was to take place 
suddenly became densely thronged. All the guests 
pressed eagerly about the table near the picture, upon 
which one of the hall boys had just placed a ballot box 
containing the numbers. The ladies, holding their tickets 
in their hands, pushed forward. A staccato chatter of 
excited murmurs arose. 

What became of Harran and Lyman and the Gover- 
nor?” inquired Presley. 

Lyman had disappeared, alleging a business engage- 
ment, but Magnus and his younger son had retired to 
the library of the club on the floor above. It was almost 
deserted. They were deep in earnest conversation. 

Harran,” said the Governor, with decision, “ there is 
a deal, there, in what Cedarquist says. Our wheat to 
China, hey, boy? ” 


A Story of California 319 

It is certainly worth thinking of, sir/’ 

“ It appeals to me, boy ; it appeals to me. It’s big and 
there’s a fortune in it. Big chances mean big returns; 
and I know — your old father isn’t a back number yet, 
Harran — I may not have so wide an outlook as our friend 
Cedarquist, but I am quick to see my chance. Boy, the 
whole East is opening, disintegrating before the Anglo- 
Saxon. It is time that bread stuffs, as well, should make 
markets for themselves in the Orient. Just at this mo- 
ment, too, when Lyman will scale down freight rates so 
we can haul to tidewater at little cost.” 

Magnus paused again, his frown beetling, and in the 
silence the excited murmur from the main room of the 
club, the soprano chatter of a multitude of women, found 
its way to the deserted library. 

I believe it’s worth looking into. Governor,” asserted 
Harran. 

Magnus rose, and, his hands behind him, paced the 
floor of the library a couple of times, his imagination all 
stimulated and vivid. The great gambler perceived his 
Chance, the kaleidoscopic shifting of circumstances that 
made a Situation. It had come silently, unexpectedly. 
He had not seen its approach. Abruptly he woke one 
morning to see the combination realised. But also he 
saw a vision. A sudden and abrupt revolution in the 
Wheat. A new world of markets discovered, the matter 
as important as the discovery of America. The torrent 
of wheat was to be diverted, flowing back upon itself in 
a sudden, colossal eddy, stranding the middleman, the 
cntre-prenenr, the elevator- and mixing-house men dry 
and despairing, their occupation gone. He saw the farmer 
suddenly emancipated, the world’s food no longer at the 
mercy of the speculator, thousands upon thousands of 
men set free of the grip of Trust and ring and monopoly 
acting for themselves, selling their own wheat, organis- 


320 


The Octopus 

ing into one gigantic trust, themselves, sending their 
agents to all the entry ports of China. Himself, Annix- 
ter, Broderson and Osterman would pool their issues. 
He would convince them of the magnificence of the new 
movement. They would be its pioneers. Harran would 
be sent to Hong Kong to represent the four. They would 
charter — probably buy — a ship, perhaps one of Cedar- 
quist’s, American built, the nation’s flag at the peak, and 
the sailing of that ship, gorged with the crops from 
Broderson’s and Osterman’s ranches, from Quien Sabe 
and Los Muertos, would be like the sailing of the cara- 
vels from Palos. It would mark a new era; it would 
make an epoch. 

With this vision still expanding before the eye of his 
mind, Magnus, with Harran at his elbow, prepared to 
depart. 

They descended to the lower floor and involved them- 
selves for a moment in the throng of fashionables that 
blocked the hallway and the entrance to the main room, 
where the numbers of the raffle were being drawn. Near 
the head of the stairs they encountered Presley and 
Cedarquist, who had just come out of the wine room. 

Magnus, still on fire with the new idea, pressed a few 
questions upon the manufacturer before bidding him 
good-bye. He wished to talk further upon the great sub- 
ject, interested as to details, but Cedarquist was vague in 
his replies. He was no farmer, he hardly knew wheat 
when he saw it, only he knew the trend of the world’s 
affairs ; he felt them to be setting inevitably east- 
ward. 

However, his very vagueness was a further inspira- 
tion to the Governor. He swept details aside. He saw 
only the grand coup, the huge results, the East con- 
quered, the march of empire rolling westward, finally ar- 
riving at its starting point, the vague, mysterious Orient. 


A Story of California 321 

He saw his wheat, like the crest of an advancing billow, 
crossing the Pacific, bursting upon Asia, flooding the 
Orient in a golden torrent. It was the new era. He had 
lived to see the death of the old and the birth of the new ; 
first the mine, now the ranch; first gold, now wheat. 
Once again he became the pioneer, hardy, brilliant, tak- 
ing colossal chances, blazing the way, grasping a fortune 
— a million in a single day. All the bigness of his nature 
leaped up again within him. At the magnitude of the in- 
spiration he felt young again, indomitable, the leader at 
last, king of his fellows, wresting from fortune at this 
eleventh hour, before his old age, the place of high com- 
mand which so long had been denied him. At last he 
could achieve. 

Abruptly Magnus was aware that some one had spoken 
his name. He looked about and saw behind him, at a 
little distance, two gentlemen, strangers to him. They 
had withdrawn from the crowd into a little recess. Evi- 
dently having no women to look after, they had lost in- 
terest in the afternoon’s affair. Magnus realised that 
they had not seen him. One of them was reading aloud 
to his companion from an evening edition of that day’s 
newspaper. It was in the course of this reading that 
Magnus caught the sound of his name. He paused, lis- 
tening, and Presley, Harran and Cedarquist followed his 
example. Soon they all understood. They were listen- 
ing to the report of the judge’s decision, for which 
Magnus was waiting — the decision in the case of the 
League vs. the Railroad. For the moment, the polite 
clamour of the raffle hushed itself — the winning number 
was being drawn. The guests held their breath, and in 
the ensuing silence Magnus and the others heard these 
words distinctly: 

It follows that the title to the lands in 
question is in the plaintiff — the Pacific and Southwest- 


322 


The Octopus 

ern Railroad, and the defendants have no title, and their 
possession is wrongful. There must be findings and 
judgment for the plaintiff, and it is so ordered.” 

In spite of himself, Magnus paled. Harran shut his 
teeth with an oath. Their exaltation of the previous mo- 
ment collapsed like a pyramid of cards. The vision of 
the new movement of the wheat, the conquest of the 
East, the invasion of the Orient, seemed only the flimsiest 
mockery. With a brusque wrench, they were snatched 
back to reality. Between them and the vision, between 
the fecund San Joaquin, reeking with fruitfulness, and 
the millions of Asia crowding toward the verge of starva- 
tion, lay the iron-hearted monster of steel and steam, im- 
placable, insatiable, huge — its entrails gorged with the 
life blood that it sucked from an entire commonwealth, 
its ever hungry maw glutted with the harvests that 
should have fed the famished bellies of the whole world 
of the Orient. 

But abruptly, while the four men stood there, gaz- 
ing into each other’s faces, a vigorous hand-clapping 
broke out. The raffle of Hartrath’s picture was over, 
and as Presley turned about he saw Mrs. Cedarquist 
and her two daughters signalling eagerly to the manu- 
facturer, unable to reach him because of the interven- 
ing crowd. Then Mrs. Cedarquist raised her voice and 
cried : 

'' I’ve won. I’ve won.” 

Unnoticed, and with but a brief word to Cedarquist, 
Magnus and Harran went down the marble steps leading 
to the street door, silent, Harran’s arm tight around his 
father’s shoulder. 

At once the orchestra struck into a lively air. A re- 
newed murmur of conversation broke out, and Cedar- 
quist, as he said good-bye to Presley, looked first at the 
retreating figures of the ranchers, then at the gayly 


323 


A Story of California 

dressed throng of beautiful women and debonair young 
men, and indicating the whole scene with a single gesture, 
said, smiling sadly as he spoke: 

'' Not a city, Presley, not a city, but a Midway 
Plaisance.” 


II 


Underneath the Long Trestle where Broderson Creek 
cut the line of the railroad and the Upper Road, the 
ground was low and covered with a second growth of 
grey green willows. Along the borders of the creek 
were occasional marshy spots, and now and then Hilma 
Tree came here to gather water-cresses, which she made 
into salads. 

The place was picturesque, secluded, an oasis of green 
shade in all the limitless, flat monotony of the surround- 
ing wheat lands. The creek had eroded deep into the lit- 
tle gully, and no matter how hot it was on the baking, 
shimmering levels of the ranches above, down here one 
always found one’s self enveloped in an odorous, moist 
coolness. From time to time, the incessant murmur of 
the creek, pouring over and around the larger stones, 
was interrupted by the thunder of trains roaring out 
upon the trestle overhead, passing on with the furious 
gallop of their hundreds of iron wheels, leaving in the 
air a taint of hot oil, acrid smoke, and reek of escaping 
steam. 

On a certain afternoon, in the spring of the year, 
Hilma was returning to Quien Sabe from Hooven’s by 
the trail that led from Los Muertos to Annixter’s ranch 
houses, under the trestle. She had spent the afternoon 
with Minna Hooven, who, for the time being, was kept 
indoors because of a wrenched ankle. As Hilma de- 
scended into the gravel flats and thickets of willows un- 
derneath the trestle, she decided that she would gather 


A Story of California 325 

some cresses for her supper that night. She found a spot 
around the base of one of the supports of the trestle 
where the cresses grew thickest, and plucked a couple of 
handfuls, washing them in the creek and pinning them 
up in her handkerchief. It made a little, round, cold 
bundle, and Hilma, warm from her walk, found a de- 
licious enjoyment in pressing the damp ball of it to her 
cheeks and neck. 

For all the change that Annixter had noted in her upon 
the occasion of the barn dance, Hilma remained in many 
things a young child. She was never at loss for enjoy- 
ment, and could always amuse herself when left alone. 
Just now, she chose to drink from the creek, lying prone 
on the ground, her face half-buried in the water, and this, 
not because she was thirsty, but because it was a new 
way to drink. She imagined herself a belated traveller, a 
poor girl, an outcast, quenching her thirst at the wayside 
brook, her little packet of cresses doing duty for a bundle 
of clothes. Night was coming on. Perhaps it would 
storm. She had nowhere to go. She would apply at a 
hut for shelter. 

Abruptly, the temptation to dabble her feet in the creek 
presented itself to her. Always she had liked to play in 
the water. What a delight now to take off her shoes and 
stockings and wade out into the shallows near the bank ! 
She had worn low shoes that afternoon, and the dust of 
the trail had filtered in above the edges. At times, she 
felt the grit and grey sand on the soles of her feet, and 
the sensation had set her teeth on edge. What a delicious 
alternative the cold, clean water suggested, and how easy 
it would be to do as she pleased just then, if only she 
were a little girl. In the end, it was stupid to be grown 
up. 

Sitting upon the bank, one finger tucked into the heel 
of her shoe, Hilma hesitated. Suppose a train should 


326 The Octopus 

come ! She fancied she could see the engineer leaning 
from the cab with a great grin on his face, or the brake- 
man shouting gibes at her from the platform. Abruptly 
she blushed scarlet. The blood throbbed in her temples. 
Her heart beat. 

Since the famous evening of the barn dance, Annixter 
had spoken to her but twice. Hilma no longer looked 
after the ranch house these days. The thought of setting 
foot within Annixter’s dining-room and bed-room ter- 
rified her, and in the end her mother had taken over that 
part of her work. Of the two meetings with the master 
of Quien Sabe, one had been a mere exchange of good 
mornings as the two happened to meet over by the ar- 
tesian well; the other, more complicated, had occurred 
in the dairy-house again, Annixter, pretending to look 
over the new cheese press, asking about details of her 
work. When this had happened on that previous occa- 
sion, ending with Annixter ’s attempt to kiss her, Hilma 
had been talkative enough, chattering on from one sub- 
ject to another, never at a loss for a theme. But this 
last time was a veritable ordeal. No sooner had Annixter 
appeared than her heart leaped and quivered like that of 
the hound-harried doe. Her speech failed her. Through- 
out the whole brief interview she had been miserably 
tongue-tied, stammering monosyllables, confused, hor- 
ribly awkward, and when Annixter had gone away, she 
had fled to her little room, and bolting the door, had 
flung herself face downward on the bed and wept as 
though her heart were breaking, she did not know why. 

That Annixter had been overwhelmed with business 
all through the winter was an inexpressible relief to 
Hilma. His affairs took him away from the ranch con- 
tinually. He was absent sometimes for weeks, making 
trips to San Francisco, or to Sacramento, or to Bonne- 
ville. Perhaps he was forgetting her, overlooking her; 


A Story of California 327 

and while, at first, she told herself that she asked nothingf 
better, the idea of it began to occupy her mind. She 
began to wonder if it was really so. 

She knew his trouble. Everybody did. The news of 
the sudden forward movement of the Railroad’s forces, 
inaugurating the campaign, had flared white-hot and 
blazing all over the country side. To Hilma’s notion, 
Annixter’s attitude was heroic beyond all expression. 
His courage in facing the Railroad, as he had faced De- 
laney in the barn, seemed to fier the pitch of sublimity. 
She refused to see any auxiliaries aiding him in his fight. 
To her imagination, the great League, which all the 
ranchers were joining, was a mere form. Single-handed, 
Annixter fronted the monster. But for him the corpora- 
tion would gobble Quien Sabe, as a whale would a min- 
now. He was a hero who stood between them all and de- 
struction. He was a protector of her family. He was 
her champion. She began to mention him in her prayers 
every night, adding a further petition to the effect that 
he would become a good man, and that he should not 
swear so much, and that he should never meet Delaney 
again. 

However, as Hilma still debated the idea of bathing 
her feet in the creek, a train did actually thunder past 
overhead — the regular evening Overland, — the through 
express, that never stopped between Bakersfield and 
Fresno. It stormed by with a deafening clamour, and 
a swirl of smoke, in a long succession of way-coaches, 
and chocolate coloured Pullmans, grimy with the dust of 
the great deserts of the Southwest. The quivering of the 
trestle’s supports set a tremble in the ground underfoot. 
The thunder of wheels drowned all sound of the flowing 
of the creek, and also the noise of the buckskin mare’s 
hoofs descending from the trail upon the gravel about 
the creek, so that Hilma, turning about after the passage 


j 28 The Octopus 

of the train, saw Annixter close at hand, with the abrupt- 
ness of a vision. 

He was looking at her, smiling as he rarely did, the 
firm line of his out-thrust lower lip relaxed good- 
humouredly. He had taken off his campaign hat to her, 
and though his stiff, yellow hair was twisted into a 
bristling mop, the little persistent tuft on the crown, 
usually defiantly erect as an Apache’s scalp-lock, was 
nowhere in sight. 

Hello, it’s you, is it. Miss Hilma?” he exclaimed, 
getting down from the buckskin, and allowing her to 
drink. 

Hilma nodded, scrambling to her feet, dusting her 
skirt with nervous pats of both hands. 

Annixter sat down on a great rock close by and, the 
loop of the bridle over his arm, lit a cigar, and began to 
talk. He complained of the heat of the day, the bad 
condition of the Lower Road, over which he had come 
on his way from a committee meeting of the League at 
Los Muertos; of the slowness of the work on the irri- 
gating ditch, and, as a matter of course, of the general 
hard times. 

Miss Hilma,” he said abruptly, never you marry a 
ranchman. He’s never out of trouble.” 

Hilma gasped, her eyes widening till the full round 
of the pupil was disclosed. Instantly, a certain, inexplic- 
able guiltiness overpowered her with incredible confusion. 
Her hands trembled as she pressed the bundle of cresses 
into a hard ball between her palms. 

Annixter continued to talk. He was disturbed and ex- 
cited himself at this unexpected meeting. Never through 
all the past winter months of strenuous activity, the fever 
of political campaigns, the harrowing delays and ultimate 
defeat in one law court after another, had he forgotten 
the look in Hilma’s face as he stood with one arm around 


A Story of California 329 

her on the floor of his barn, in peril of his life from the 
buster’s revolver. That dumb confession of Hilma’s 
wide-open eyes had been enough for him. Yet, some- 
how, he never had had a chance to act upon it. During 
the short period when he could be on his ranch Hilma 
had always managed to avoid him. Once, even, she had 
spent a month, about Christmas time, with her mother’s 
father, who kept a hotel in San Francisco. 

Now, to-day, however, he had her all to himself. He 
would put an end to the situation that troubled him, and 
vexed him, day after day, month after month. Beyond 
question, the moment had come for something definite, 
he could not say precisely what. Readjusting his cigar 
between his teeth, he resumed his speech. It suited 
his humour to take the girl into his confidence, follow- 
ing an instinct which warned him that this would bring 
about a certain closeness of their relations, a certain in- 
timacy. 

What do you think of this row, anyways, Miss Hilma, 
— this railroad fuss in general? Think Shelgrim and his 
rushers are going to jump Quien Sabe — are going to run 
us off the ranch ? ” 

“ Oh, no, sir,” protested Hilma, still breathless. '' Oh, 
no, indeed not.” 

‘^Well, what then?” 

Hilma made a little uncertain movement of ignorance. 

I don’t know what.” 

Well, the League agreed to-day that if the test cases 
were lost in the Supreme Court — ^you know we’ve ap- 
pealed to the Supreme Court, at Washington — we’d 
fight.” 

“ Fight?” 

‘‘Yes, fight.” 

“ Fight like — like you and Mr. Delaney that time with 
— oh, dear — with guns?” 


330 The Octopus 

'' I don’t know,” grumbled Annixter vaguely. What 
do you think ? ” 

Hilma’s low-pitched, almost husky voice trembled a 
little as she replied, Fighting — with guns — that’s so ter- 
rible. Oh, those revolvers in the barn ! I can hear them 
yet. Every shot seemed like the explosion of tons of 
powder.” 

** Shall we clear out, then ? Shall we let Delaney have 
possession, and S. Behrman, and all that lot? Shall we 
give in to them ? ” 

Never, never,” she exclaimed, her great eyes flashing. 

You wouldn’t like to be turned out of your home, 
would you. Miss Hilma, because Quien Sabe is your 
home isn’t it? You’ve lived here ever since you were 
as big as a minute. You wouldn’t like to have S. Behr- 
man and the rest of ’em turn you out ? ” 

N-no,” she murmured. No, I shouldn’t like that. 
There’s mamma and ” 

Well, do you think for one second I’m going to let 
’em?” cried Annixter, his teeth tightening on his cigar. 
** You stay right where you are. I’ll take care of you, 
right enough. Look here,” he demanded abruptly, 
“ you’ve no use for that roaring lush, Delaney, have 
you ? ” 

“ I think he is a wicked man,” she declared. I know 
the Railroad has pretended to sell him part of the ranch, 
and he lets Mr. S. Behrman and Mr. Ruggles just use 
him.” 

Right. I thought you wouldn’t be keen on him.” 

There was a long pause. The buckskin began blowing 
among the pebbles, nosing for grass, and Annixter shifted 
his cigar to the other corner of his mouth. 

Pretty place,” he muttered, looking around him. 
Then he added : ** Miss Hilma, see here, I want to have 
a kind of talk with you, if you don’t mind. I don’t know 


A Story of California 331 

just how to say these sort of things, and if I get all balled 
up as I go along, you just set it down to the fact that 
IVe never had any experience in dealing with feemale 
girls; understand? You see, ever since the barn dance — 
yes, and long before then — Fve been thinking a lot about 
you. Straight, I have, and I guess you know it. You’re 
about the only girl that I ever knew well, and I guess,” 
he declared deliberately, you’re about the only one I 
want to know. It’s my nature. You didn’t say any- 
thing that time when we stood there together and De- 
laney was playing the fool, but, somehow, I got the idea 
that you didn’t want Delaney to do for me one little bit ; 
that if he’d got me then you would have been sorrier 
than if he’d got any one else. Well, I felt just that way 
about you. I would rather have had him shoot any other 
girl in the room than you; yes, or in the whole State. 
Why, if anything should happen to you. Miss Hilma — 
well, I wouldn’t care to go on with anything. S. Behr- 
man could jump Quien Sabe, and welcome. And Delaney 
could shoot me full of holes whenever he got good and 
ready. I’d quit. I’d lay right down. I wouldn’t care a 
whoop about anything any more. You are the only girl 
for me in the whole world. I didn’t think so at first. I 
didn’t want to. But seeing you around every day, and 
seeing how pretty you were, and how clever, and hearing 
your voice and all, why, it just got all inside of me some- 
how, and now I can’t think of anything else. I hate to 
go to San Francisco, or Sacramento, or Visalia, or even 
Bonneville, for only a day, just because you aren’t there, 
in any of those places, and I just rush what I’ve got to 
do so as I can get back here. While you were away 
that Christmas time, why, I was as lonesome as — oh, you 
don’t know anything about it. I just scratched off the 
days on the calendar every night, one by one, till you got 
back. And it just comes to this, I want you with me all 


332 


The Octopus 

the time. I want you should have a home that’s my 
home, too. I want to take care of you, and have you all 
for myself, you understand. What do you say ? ” 

Hilma, standing up before him, retied a knot in her 
handkerchief bundle with elaborate precaution, blinking 
at it through her tears. 

‘‘What do you say. Miss Hilma?’’ Annixter repeated. 
“ How about that ? What do you say ? ” 

Just above a whisper, Hilma murmured: 

“ I — I don’t know.” 

“Don’t know what? Don’t you think we could hit it 
off together?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ I know we could, Hilma. I don’t mean to scare you. 
What are you crying for ? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 

Annixter got up, cast away his cigar, and dropping 
the buckskin’s bridle, came and stood beside her, put- 
ting a hand on her shoulder. Hilma did not move, and he 
felt her trembling. She still plucked at the knot of the 
handkerchief. 

“ I can’t do without you, little girl,” Annixter con- 
tinued, “ and I want you. I want you bad. I don’t get 
much fun out of life ever. It, sure, isn’t my nature, I 
guess. I’m a hard man. Everybody is trying to down 
me, and now I’m up against the Railroad. I’m fighting 
’em all, Hilma, night and day, lock, stock, and barrel, and 
I’m fighting now for my home, my land, everything I 
have in the world. If I win out, I want somebody to be 
glad with me. If I don’t — I want somebody to be sorry 
for me, sorry with me, — and that somebody is you. I am 
dog-tired of going it alone. I want some one to back me 
up. I want to feel you alongside of me, to give me a 
touch of the shoulder now and then. I’m tired of fighting 
for things — land, property, money. I want to fight for 


333 


A Story of California 

some person — somebody beside myself. Understand ? I 
want to feel that it isn’t all selfishness — that there are 
other interests than mine in the game — that there’s some 
one dependent on me, and that’s thinking of me as I’m 
thinking of them — some one I can come home to at night 
and put my arm around — like this, and have her put her 
two arms around me — like — ” He paused a second, and 
once again, as it had been in that moment of imminent 
peril, when he stood with his arm around her, their eyes 
met, — ‘‘put her two arms around me,” prompted An- 
nixter, half smiling, “like — like what, Hilma?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Like what, Hilma? ” he insisted. 

“ Like — like this ? ” she questioned. With a movement 
of infinite tenderness and affection she slid her arms 
around his neck, still crying a little. 

The sensation of her warm body in his embrace, the 
feeling of her smooth, round arm, through the thinness 
of her sleeve, pressing against his cheek, thrilled Annix- 
ter with a delight such as he had never known. He bent 
his head and kissed her upon the nape of her neck, where 
the delicate amber tint melted into the thick, sweet smell- 
ing mass of her dark brown hair. She shivered a little, 
holding him closer, ashamed as yet to look up. Without 
speech, they stood there for a long minute, holding each 
other close. Then Hilma pulled away from him, mop- 
ping her tear-stained cheeks with the little moist ball of 
her handkerchief. 

“ What do you say? Is it a go? ” demanded Annixter 
jovially. 

“ I thought I hated you all the time,” she said, and 
the velvety huskiness of her voice never sounded so sweet 
to him. 

“ And I thought it was that crockery smashing goat of 
a lout of a cow-puncher.” 


334 


The Octopus 

** Delaney ? The Idea ! Oh, dear ! I think it must al- 
ways have been you/' 

‘‘Since when, Hilma?" he asked, putting his arm 
around her. “ Ah, but it is good to have you, my girl," 
he exclaimed, delighted beyond words that she permitted 
this freedom. “Since when? Tell us all about it." 

“ Oh, since always. It was ever so long before I came 
to think of you — to, well, to think about — I mean to re- 
member — oh, you know what I mean. But when I did, 
oh, then! " 

“ Then what? ” 

“I don't know — I haven’t thought — that way long 
enough to know.” 

“But you said you thought it must have been me 
always.” 

“I know; but that was different — oh, I’m all mixed 
up. I'm so nervous and trembly now. Oh,” she cried 
suddenly, her face overcast with a look of earnestness and 
great seriousness, both her hands catching at his wrist, 
“Oh, you will be good to me, now, won’t you? I'm 
only a little, little child in so many ways, and I’ve given 
myself to you, all In a minute, and I can’t go back of it 
now, and it's for always. I don't know how it happened 
or why. Sometimes I think I didn’t wish it, but now it’s 
done, and I am glad and happy. But nozv if you weren’t 
good to me — oh, think of how it would be with me. 
You are strong, and big, and rich, and I am only a ser- 
vant of yours, a little nobody, but I’ve given all I had 
to you — ^myself — ^and you must be so good to me now. 
Always remember that. Be good to me and be gentle 
and kind to me in little things, — In everything, or you 
will break my heart.” 

Annixter took her in his arms. He was speechless. 
No words that he had at his command seemed adequate. 
All he could say was: 


335 


A Story of California 

" That’s all right, little girl. Don’t you be frightened. 
I’ll take care of you. That’s all right, that’s all right.” 

For a long time they sat there under the shade of the 
great trestle, their arms about each other, speaking only 
at intervals. An hour passed. The buckskin, finding no 
feed to her taste, took the trail stablewards, the bridle 
^^^&&ing. Annixter let her go. Rather than to take his 
arm from around Hilma’s waist he would have lost his 
whole stable. At last, however, he bestirred himself and 
began to talk. He thought it time to formulate some 
plan of action. 

“ Well, now, Hilma, what are we going to do? ” 

Do ? ” she repeated. “ Why, must we do anything ? 
Oh, isn’t this enough?” 

“ There’s better ahead,” he went on. I want to fix 
you up somewhere where you can have a bit of a home all 
to yourself. Let’s see; Bonneville wouldn’t do. There’s 
always a lot of yaps about there that know us, and they 
would begin to cackle first off. How about San Fran- 
cisco. We might go up next week and have a look 
around. I would find rooms you could take somewheres, 
and we would fix ’em up as lovely as how-do-you-do.” 

“ Oh, but why go away from Quien Sabe ? ” she pro- 
tested. ‘‘And, then, so soon, too. Why must we have 
a wedding trip, now that you are so busy? Wouldn’t it 
be better — oh, I tell you, we could go to Monterey after 
we were married, for a little week, where mamma’s peo- 
ple live, and then come back here to the ranch house and 
settle right down where we are and let me keep house for 
you. I wouldn’t even want a single servant.” 

Annixter heard and his face grew troubled. 

“ Hum,” he said, “ I see.” 

He gathered up a handful of pebbles and began snap- 
ping them carefully into the creek. He fell thoughtful. 
Here was a phase of the affair he had not planned in the 


336 The Octopus 

least. He had supposed all the time that Hilma took 
his meaning. His old suspicion that she was trying to 
get a hold on him stirred again for a moment. There was 
no good of such talk as that. Always these feemale girls 
seemed crazy to get married, bent on complicating the 
situation. 

‘‘ Isn’t that best ? ” said Hilma, glancing at him. 

'' I don’t know,” he muttered gloomily. 

Well, then, let’s not. Let’s come right back to Quien 
Sabe without going to Monterey. Anything that you 
want I want.” 

“ I hadn’t thought of it in just that way,” he observed. 

“ In what way, then ? ” 

Can’t we — can’t we wait about this marrying busi- 
ness ? ” 

“ That’s just it,” she said gayly. I said it was too 
soon. There would be so much to do between whiles. 
Why not say at the end of the summer ? ” 

Say what ? ” 

Our marriage, I mean.” 

Why get married, then ? What’s the good of all that 
fuss about it? I don’t go anything upon a minister 
puddling round in my affairs. What’s the difference, 
anyhow? We understand each other. Isn’t that enough ? 
Pshaw, Hilma, rm no marrying man.” 

She looked at him a moment, bewildered, then slowly 
she took his meaning. She rose to her feet, her eyes 
wide, her face paling with terror. He did not look at 
her, but he could hear the catch in her throat. 

** Oh ! ” she exclaimed, with a long, deep breath, and 
again “ Oh! ” the back of her hand against her lips. 

It was a quick gasp of a veritable physical anguish. 
Her eyes brimmed over. Annixter rose, looking at her. 

“Well?” he said, awkwardly, “Well?” 

Hilma leaped back from him with an instinctive recoil 


337 


A Story of California 

of her whole being, throwing out her hands in a gesture 
of defence, fearing she knew not what. There was as yet 
no sense of insult in her mind, no outraged modesty. She 
was only terrified. It was as though searching for wild 
flowers she had come suddenly upon a snake. 

She stood for an instant, spellbound, her eyes wide, 
her bosom swelling; then, all at once, turned and fled, 
darting across the plank that served for a foot bridge 
over the creek, gaining the opposite bank and disappear- 
ing with a brisk rustle of underbrush, such as might have 
been made by the flight of a frightened fawn. 

Abruptly Annixter found himself alone. For a mo- 
ment he did not move, then he picked up his campaign 
hat, carefully creased its limp crown and put it on his 
head and stood for a moment, looking vaguely at the 
ground on both sides of him. He went away without 
uttering a word, without change of countenance, his 
hands in his pockets, his feet taking great strides along 
the trail in the direction of the ranch house. 

He had no sight of Hilma again that evening, and the 
next morning he was up early and did not breakfast at 
the ranch house. Business of the League called him to 
Bonneville to confer with Magnus and the firm of lawyers 
retained by the League to fight the land-grabbing cases. 
An appeal was to be taken to the Supreme Court at 
Washington, and it was to be settled that day which of 
the cases involved should be considered as test cases. 

Instead of driving or riding into Bonneville, as he 
usually did, Annixter took an early morning train, the 
Bakersfield-Fresno local at Guadalajara, and went to 
Bonneville by rail, arriving there at twenty minutes after 
seven and breakfasting by appointment with Magnus 
Derrick and Osterman at the Yosemite House, on Main 
Street. 

The conference of the committee with the lawyers took 


338 


The Octopus 

place in a front room of the Yosemite, one of the latter 
bringing with him his clerk, who made a stenographic 
report of the proceedings and took carbon copies of all 
letters written. The conference was long and compli- 
cated, the business transacted of the utmost moment, 
and it was not until two o’clock that Annixter found him- 
self at liberty. 

However, as he and Magnus descended into the lobby 
of the hotel, they were aware of an excited and interested 
group collected about the swing doors that opened from 
the lobby of the Yosemite into the bar of the same name. 
Dyke was there — even at a distance they could hear the 
reverberation of his deep-toned voice, uplifted in wrath 
and furious expostulation. Magnus and Annixter joined 
the group wondering, and all at once fell full upon the 
first scene of a drama. 

That same morning Dyke’s mother had awakened him 
according to his instructions at daybreak. A consign- 
ment of his hop poles from the north had arrived at the 
freight office of the P. and S. W. in Bonneville, and he 
was to drive in on his farm wagon and bring them out. 
He would have a busy day. 

‘‘ Hello, hello,” he said, as his mother pulled his ear 
to arouse him ; morning, mamma.” 

“It’s time,” she said, “after five already. Your 
breakfast is on the stove.” 

He took her hand and kissed it with great affection. 
He loved his mother devotedly, quite as much as he did 
the little tad. In their little cottage, in the forest of 
green hops that surrounded them on every hand, the 
three led a joyous and secluded life, contented, indus- 
trious, happy, asking nothing better. Dyke, himself, was 
a big-hearted, jovial man who spread an atmosphere of 
good-humour wherever he went. In the evenings he 
played with Sidney like a big boy, an older brother, lyin|> 


339 


A Story of California 

on the bed, or the sofa, taking her in his arms. Between 
them they had invented a great game. The ex-engineer, 
his boots removed, his huge legs in the air, hoisted the 
little tad on the soles of his stockinged feet like a circus 
acrobat, dandling her there, pretending he was about to 
let her fall. Sidney, choking with delight, held on 
nervously, with little screams and chirps of excitement, 
while he shifted her gingerly from one foot to another, 
and thence, the final act, the great gallery play, to the 
palm of one great hand. At this point Mrs. Dyke was 
called in, both father and daughter, children both, crying 
out that she was to come in and look, look. She arrived 
out of breath from the kitchen, the potato masher in her 
hand. 

Such children,’" she murmured, shaking her head at 
them, amused for all that, tucking the potato masher 
under her arm and clapping her hands. 

In the end, it was part of the game that Sidney should 
tumble down upon Dyke, whereat he invariably vented a 
great bellow as if in pain, declaring that his ribs were 
broken. Gasping, his eyes shut, he pretended to be in 
the extreme of dissolution — perhaps he was dying. Sid- 
ney, always a little uncertain, amused but distressed, 
shook him nervously, tugging at his beard, pushing open 
his eyelid with one finger, imploring him not to frighten 
her, to wake up and be good. 

On this occasion, while yet he was half-dressed. Dyke 
tiptoed into his mother’s room to look at Sidney fast 
asleep in her little iron cot, her arm under her head, her 
lips parted. With infinite precaution he kissed her twice, 
and then finding one little stocking, hung with its mate 
very neatly over the back of a chair, dropped into it a 
dime, rolled up in a wad of paper. He winked all to 
himself and went out again, closing the door with exag* 
gerated carefulness. 


340 


The Octopus 

He breakfasted alone, Mrs. Dyke pouring his coffee 
and handing him his plate of ham and eggs, and half an 
hour later took himself off in his springless, skeleton 
wagon, humming a tune behind his beard and cracking 
the whip over the backs of his staid and solid farm 
horses. 

The morning was fine, the sun just coming up. He left 
Guadalajara, sleeping and lifeless, on his left, and going 
across lots, over an angle of Quien Sabe, came out upon 
the Upper Road, a mile below the Long Trestle. He 
was in great spirits, looking about him over the brown 
fields, ruddy with the dawn. Almost directly in front of 
him, but far off, the gilded dome of the court-house at 
Bonneville was glinting radiant in the first rays of the 
sun, while a few miles distant, toward the north, the 
venerable campanile of the Mission San Juan stood sil- 
houetted in purplish black against the flaming east. As 
he proceeded, the great farm horses jogging forward, 
placid, deliberate, the country side waked to another 
day. Crossing the irrigating ditch further on, he met a 
gang of Portuguese, with picks and shovels over their 
shoulders, just going to work. Hooven, already abroad, 
shouted him a “ Goot mornun ” from behind the fence 
of Los Muertos. Far off, toward the southwest, in the 
bare expanse of the open fields, where a clump of euca- 
lyptus and cypress trees set a dark green note, a thin 
stream of smoke rose straight into the air from the 
kitchen of Derrick’s ranch houses. 

But a mile or so beyond the Long Trestle he was sur- 
prised to see Magnus Derrick’s protege, the one-time 
shepherd, Vanamee, coming across Quien Sabe, by a 
trail from one of Annixter’s division houses. Without 
knowing exactly why. Dyke received the impression that 
the young man had not been in bed all of that night. 

As the two approached each other. Dyke eyed the 


341 


A Story of California 

young fellow. He was distrustful of Vanamee, having 
the country-bred suspicion of any person he could not 
understand. Vanamee was, beyond doubt, no part of the 
life of ranch and country town. He was an alien, a vaga- 
bond, a Strange fellow who came and went in mysterious 
fashion, making no friends, keeping to himself. Why 
did he never wear a hat, why indulge in a fine, black, 
pointed beard, when either a round beard or a mustache 
was the invariable custom ? Why did he not cut his hair ? 
Above all, why did he prowl about so much at night? 
As the two passed each other. Dyke, for all his good- 
nature, was a little blunt in his greeting and looked back 
at the ex-shepherd over his shoulder. 

Dyke was right in his suspicion. Vanamee’s bed had 
not been disturbed for three nights. On the Monday of 
that week he had passed the entire night in the garden of 
the Mission, overlooking the Seed ranch, in the little val- 
ley. Tuesday evening had found him miles away from 
that spot, in a deep arroyo in the Sierra foothills to the 
eastward, while Wednesday he had slept in an abandoned 
’dobe on Osterman's stock range, twenty miles from his 
testing place of the night before. 

The fact of the matter was that the old restlessness 
had once more seized upon Vanamee. Something began 
tugging at him ; the spur of some unseen rider touched 
his flank. The instinct of the wanderer woke and moved. 
For some time now he had been a part of the Los Muertos 
staff. On Quien Sabe, as on the other ranches, the slack 
season was at hand. While waiting for the wheat to 
come up no one was doing much of anything. Vanamee 
had come over to Los Muertos and spent most of his 
days on horseback, riding the range, rounding up and 
watching the cattle in the fourth division of the ranch. 
But if the vagabond instinct now roused itself in the 
strange fellow’s nature, a counter influence had also set in. 


342 


The Octopus 

More and more Vanamee frequented the Mission garden 
after nightfall, sometimes remaining there till the dawn 
began to whiten, lying prone on the ground, his chin on 
his folded arms, his eyes searching the darkness over the 
little valley of the Seed ranch, watching, watching. As 
the days went by, he became more reticent than ever. 
Presley often came to find him on the stock range, a 
lonely figure in the great wilderness of bare, green hill- 
sides, but Vanamee no longer took him into his confi- 
dence. Father Sarria alone heard his strange stories. 

Dyke drove on toward Bonneville, thinking over the 
whole matter. He knew, as every one did in that part of 
the country, the legend of Vanamee and Angele, the ro- 
mance of the Mission garden, the mystery of the Other, 
Vanamee’s flight to the deserts of the southwest, his 
periodic returns, his strange, reticent, solitary charac- 
ter, but, like many another of the country people, he ac- 
counted for Vanamee by a short and easy method. No 
doubt, the fellow’s wits were turned. That was the long 
and short of it. 

The ex-engineer reached the Post Office in Bonneville 
towards eleven o’clock, but he did not at once present his 
notice of the arrival of his consignment at Ruggles’s 
office. It entertained him to indulge in an hour’s loung- 
ing about the streets. It was seldom he got into town, 
and when he did he permitted himself the luxury of en- 
joying his evident popularity. He met friends every- 
where, in the Post Office, in the drug store, in the barber 
shop and around the court-house. With each one he held 
a moment’s conversation; almost invariably this ended 
in the same way: 

** Come on ’n have a drink.” 

“ Well, I don’t care if I do.” 

And the friends proceeded to the Yosemite bar, pledg- ' 
ing each other with punctilious ceremony. Dyke, how- 


343 


A Story of California 

ever, was a strictly temperate man. His life on the engine 
had trained him well. Alcohol he never touched, drinking 
instead ginger ale, sarsaparilla-and-iron — soft drinks. 

At the drug store, which also kept a stock of miscel- 
laneous stationery, his eye was caught by a “ transparent 
slate,” a child’s toy, where upon a little pane of frosted 
glass one could trace with considerable elaboration out- 
line figures of cows, ploughs, bunches of fruit and even 
rural water mills that were printed on slips of paper un- 
derneath. 

“ Now, there’s an idea, Jim,” he observed to the boy 
behind the soda-water fountain ; “ I know a little tad 
that would just about jump out of her skin for that. 
Think I’ll have to take it with me.” 

How’s Sidney getting along? ” the other asked, while 
wrapping up the package. 

Dyke’s enthusiasm had made of his little girl a 
celebrity throughout Bonneville. 

The ex-engineer promptly became voluble, assertive, 
doggedly emphatic. 

“ Smartest little tad in all Tulare County, and more 
fun! A regular whole show in herself.” 

“ And the hops ? ” inquired the other. 

Bully,” declared Dyke, with the good-natured man’s 
readiness to talk of his private affairs to any one who 
would listen. Bully. I’m dead sure of a bonanza 
crop by now. The rain came fust right. I actually don’t 
know as I can store the crop in those barns I built, it’s 
going to be so big. That foreman of mine was a daisy. 
Jim, I’m going to make money in that deal. After I’ve 
paid off the mortgage — you know I had to mortgage, yes, 
crop and homestead both, but I can pay it off and all 
the interest to boot, lovely, — well, and as I was saying, 
after all expenses are paid off I’ll clear big money, m’ 
son. Yes, sir. I knew there was boodle in hops. You 


The Octopus 


344 

know the crop is contracted for already. Sure, the fore- 
man managed that. He’s a daisy. Chap in San Fran- 
cisco will take it all and at the advanced price. I wanted 
to hang on, to see if it wouldn’t go to six cents, but the 
foreman said, ‘ No, that’s good enough.’ So I signed. 
Ain’t it bully, hey ? ” 

“ Then what’ll you do ? ” 

“ Well, I don’t know. I’ll have a lay-off for a month 
or so and take the little tad and mother up and show ’em 
the city — ’Frisco — until it’s time for the schools to open, 
and then we’ll put Sid in the seminary at Marysville. 
Catch on ? ” 

I suppose you’ll stay right by hops now ? ” 

Right you are, m’son. I know a good thing when 
I see it. There’s plenty others going into hops next 
season. I set ’em the example. Wouldn’t be surprised 
if it came to be a regular industry hereabouts. I’m plan- 
ning ahead for next year already. I can let the foreman 
go, now that I’ve learned the game myself, and I think 
I’ll buy a piece of land off Quien Sabe and get a bigger 
crop, and build a couple more barns, and, by George, in 
about five years time I’ll have things humming. I’m 
going to make money, Jim.” 

He emerged once more into the street and went up the 
block leisurely, planting his feet squarely. He fancied 
that he could feel he was considered of more importance 
nowadays. He was no longer a subordinate, an em- 
ployee. He was his own man, a proprietor, an owner of 
land, furthering a successful enterprise. No one had 
helped him; he had followed no one’s lead. He had 
struck out unaided for himself, and his success was due 
solely to his own intelligence, industry, and foresight. 
He squared his great shoulders till the blue gingham of 
his jumper all but cracked. Of late, his great blond beard 
had grown and the work in the sun had made his face 


345 


A Story of California 

very red. Under the visor of his cap — relic of his en- 
gineering days — his blue eyes twinkled with vast good- 
nature. He felt that he made a fine figure as he went 
by a group of young girls in lawns and muslins and gar- 
den hats on their way to the Post Office. He wondered 
if they looked after him, wondered if they had heard that 
he was in a fair way to become a rich man. 

But the chronometer in the window of the jewelry 
store warned him that time was passing. He turned 
about, and, crossing the street, took his way to Ruggles’s 
office, which was the freight as well as the land office of 
the P. and S. W. Railroad. 

As he stood for a moment at the counter in front of 
the wire partition, waiting for the clerk to make out the 
order for the freight agent at the depot. Dyke was sur- 
prised to see a familiar figure in conference with Ruggles 
himself, by a desk inside the railing. 

The figure was that of a middle-aged man, fat, with a 
great stomach, which he stroked from time to time. As 
he turned about, addressing a remark to the clerk. Dyke 
recognised S. Behrman. The banker, railroad agent, and 
political manipulator seemed to the ex-engineer’s eyes to 
be more gross than ever. His smooth-shaven jowl stood 
out big and tremulous on either side of his face ; the roll 
of fat on the nape of his neck, sprinkled with sparse, stiff 
hairs, bulged out with greater prominence. His great 
stomach, covered with a light brown linen vest, stamped 
with innumerable interlocked horseshoes, protruded far 
in advance, enormous, aggressive. He wore his inevita- 
ble round-topped hat of stiff brown straw, varnished so 
bright that it reflected the light of the office windows like 
a helmet, and even from where he stood Dyke could hear 
his loud breathing and the clink of the hollow links of 
his watch chain upon the vest buttons of imitation pearl, 
as his stomach rose and fell. 


346 The Octopus 

Dyke looked at him with attention. There was the 
enemy, the representative of the Trust with which Der- 
rick’s League was locking horns. The great struggle 
had begun to invest the combatants with interest. Daily, 
almost hourly, Dyke was in touch with the ranchers, the 
wheat-growers. He heard their denunciations, their 
growls of exasperation and defiance. Here was the other 
side — this placid, fat man, with a stiff straw hat and linen 
vest, who never lost his temper, who smiled affably upon 
his enemies, giving them good advice, commiserating 
with them in one defeat after another, never ruffled, 
never excited, sure of his power, conscious that back of 
him was the Machine, the colossal force, the inex- 
haustible coffers of a mighty organisation, vomiting 
millions to the League’s thousands. 

The League was clamorous, ubiquitous, its objects 
known to every urchin on the streets, but the Trust was 
silent, its ways inscrutable, the public saw only results. 
It worked on in the dark, calm, disciplined, irresistible. 
Abruptly Dyke received the impression of the multitudi- 
nous ramifications of the colossus. LFnder his feet the 
ground seemed mined ; down there below him in the dark 
the huge tentacles went silently twisting and advancing, 
spreading out in every direction, sapping the strength of 
all opposition, quiet, gradual, biding the time to reach up 
and out and grip with a sudden unleashing of gigantic 
strength. 

I’ll be wanting some cars of you people before the 
summer is out,” observed Dyke to the clerk as he folded 
up and put away the order that the other had handed him. 
He remembered perfectly well that he had arranged the 
matter of transporting his crop some months before, but 
his role of proprietor amused him and he liked to busy 
himself again and again with the details of his under- 
taking. 


347 


A Story of California 

** I suppose/’ he added, ** you’ll be able to give ’em to 
me. There’ll be a big wheat crop to move this year and 
I don’t want to be caught in any car famine.” 

Oh, you’ll get your cars,” murmured the other. 

“ I’ll be the means of bringing business your way,” 
Dyke went on ; '' I’ve done so well with my hops that 
there are a lot of others going into the business next 
season. Suppose,” he continued, struck with an idea, 
‘‘ suppose we went into some sort of pool, a sort of 
shippers’ organisation, could you give us special rates, 
cheaper rates — say a cent and a half ? ” 

The other looked up. 

A cent and a half ! Say four cents and a half and 
maybe I’ll talk business with you.” 

“ Four cents and a half,” returned Dyke, “ I don’t see 
it. Why, the regular rate is only two cents.” 

'' No, it isn’t,” answered the clerk, looking him gravely 
in the eye, “ it’s five cents.” 

“ Well, there’s where you are wrong, m’son,” Dyke 
retorted, genially. “You look it up. You’ll find the 
freight on hops from Bonneville to ’Frisco is two cents a 
pound for car load lots. You told me that yourself last 
fall.” 

“That was last fall,” observed the. clerk. There was 
a silence. Dyke shot a glance of suspicion at the other. 
Then, reassured, he remarked: 

“ You look it up. You’ll see I’m right.” 

S. Behrman came forward and ^ook hands politely 
with the ex-engineer. 

“Anything I can do for you, Mr, /Dyke?” 

Dyke explained. When he had done speaking, the 
clerk turned to S. Behrman and observed, respectfully: 

“ Our regular rate on hops is five cents.” 

“ Yes,” answered S. Behrman, pausing to reflect ; “yes, 
Mr. Dyke, that’s right — fivef cents.” 


348 


The Octopus 


The clerk brought forward a folder of yellow paper 
and handed it to Dyke. It was inscribed at the top 
“Tariff Schedule No. 8/’ and underneath these words, 
in brackets, was a smaller inscription, ''Supersedes No, 
y of Aug. I.” 

“ See for yourself, ’’ said S. Behrman. He indicated an 
item under the head of “ Miscellany.’" 

“ The following rates for carriage of hops in car load 
lots,” read Dyke, “ take effect June i, and will remain in 
force until superseded by a later tariff. Those quoted 
beyond Stockton are subject to changes in traffic arrange- 
ments with carriers by water from that point.” 

In the list that was printed below, Dyke saw that the 
rate for hops between Bonneville or Guadalajara and 
San Francisco was five cents. 

For a moment Dyke was confused. Then swiftly the 
matter became clear in his mind. The Railroad had 
raised the freight on hops from two cents to five. 

All his calculations as to a profit on his little invest- 
ment he had based on a freight rate of two cents a pound. 
He was under contract to deliver his crop. He could 
not draw back. The new rate ate up every cent of his 
gains. He stood there ruined. 

“ Why, what do you mean ? ” he burst out. “ You 
promised me a rate of two cents and I went ahead with 
my business with that understanding. What do you 
mean? ” 

S. Behrman and the clerk watched him from the other 
side of the counter. 

“ The rate is five cents,” declared the clerk doggedly. 

“Well, that ruins me,” shouted Dyke. “Do you un- 
derstand? I won’t make fifty cents. Make! Why, I 
will owe , — ril be — be — That ruins me, do you un- 
derstand ? ” 

The other raised a shoulder. 


A Story of California 349 

** We don't force you to ship. You can do as you like. 
The rate is five cents.” 

“ Well — but — damn you, Tm under contract to deliver. 
What am I going to do? Why, you told me — you 
promised me a two-cent rate.” 

“ I don't remember it,” said the clerk. “ I don't know 
anything about that. But I know this ; I know that hops 
have gone up. I know the German crop was a failure 
and that the crop in New York wasn’t worth the hauling. 
Hops have gone up to nearly a dollar. You don't sup- 
pose we don't know that, do you, Mr. Dyke? ” 

“ What's the price of hops got to do with you ? ” 

It’s got this to do with us,” returned the other with 
a sudden aggressiveness, “ that the freight rate has gone 
up to meet the price. WeTe not doing business for our 
health. My orders are to raise your rate to five cents, 
and I think you are getting oflf easy.” 

Dyke stared in blank astonishment. For the moment, 
the audacity of the affair was what most appealed to him. 
He forgot its personal application. 

“ Good Lord,” he murmured, “ good Lord ! What will 
you people do next? Look here. What’s your basis of 
applying freight rates, anyhow ? ” he suddenly vociferated 
with furious sarcasm. “ What’s your rule ? What are 
you guided by?” 

But at the words, S. Behrman, who had kept silent 
during the heat of the discussion, leaned abruptly for- 
ward. For the only time in his knowledge. Dyke saw 
his face inflamed with anger and with the enmity and 
contempt of all this farming element with whom he was 
contending. 

''Yes, what's your rule? What's your basis?” de- 
manded Dyke, turning swiftly to him. 

S. Behrman emphasised each word of his reply with 
a tap of one forefinger on the counter before him : 


350 


The Octopus 


All — the — ^traffic — will — ^bear/' 

The ex-engineer stepped back a pace, his fingers on the 
ledge of the counter, to steady himself. He felt himself 
grow pale, his heart became a mere leaden weight in his 
chest, inert, refusing to beat. 

In a second the whole affair, in all its bearings, went 
speeding before the eye of his imagination like the rapid 
unrolling of a panorama. Every cent of his earnings 
was sunk in this hop business of his. More than that, he 
had borrowed money to carry it on, certain of success — ■ 
borrowed of S. Behrman, offering his crop and his little 
home as security. Once he failed to meet his obligations, 
S. Behrman would foreclose. Not only would the Rail- 
road devour every morsel of his profits, but also it would 
take from him his home ; at a blow he would be left pen- 
niless and without a home. What would then become of 
his mother — and what would become of the little tad? 
She, whom he had been planning to educate like a verita- 
ble lady. For all that year he had talked of his ambition 
for his little daughter to every one he met. All Bonne- 
ville knew of it. What a mark for gibes he had made of 
himself. The workingman turned farmer ! What a 
target for jeers — he who had fancied he could elude the 
Railroad ! He remembered he had once said the great 
Trust had overlooked his little enterprise, disdaining to 
plunder such small fry. He should have known better 
than that. How had he ever imagined the Road would 
permit him to make any money? 

Anger was notfin him yet; no rousing of the blind, 
white-hot wrath that leaps to the attack with prehensile 
fingers, moved him. The blow merely crushed, stag- 
gered, confused. 

He stepped aside to give place to a coatless man in a 
pink shirt, who entered, carrying in his hands an auto- 
matic door-closing apparatus. 


351 


A Story of California 

" Where does this go ? inquired the man. 

Dyke sat down for a moment on a seat that had been 
removed from a worn-out railway car to do duty in 
Ruggles's office. On the back of a yellow envelope he 
made some vague figures with a stump of blue fyencil, 
multiplying, subtracting, perplexing himself wit)/ many 
errors. 

S. Behrman, the clerk, and the man with th^ door- 
closing apparatus involved themselves in a long argu- 
ment, gazing intently at the top panel of the door. The 
man who had come to fix the apparatus was. unwilling 
to guarantee it, unless a sign was put on the outside of 
the door, warning incomers that the door was self-clos- 
ing. This sign would cost fifteen cents extra. 

But you didn’t say anything about this when the 
thing was ordered,” declared S. Behiman. “ iMo, I won't 
pay it, my friend. It’s an overcharge.” 

‘‘You needn’t think,” observed the clerk, “that just 
because you are dealing with the Railroad you are going 
to work us.” 

Genslinger came in, accompanied by Delaney. S. 
Behrman and the clerk, abruptly dismissing the man with 
the door-closing machine, put themselves behind the 
counter and engaged in conversation with these two. 
Genslinger introduced Delaney. The buster had a string 
of horses he was shipping southward. No doubt he had 
come to make arrangements with the Railroad in the 
matter of stock cars. The conference of the four men 
was amicable in the extreme. J 

Dyke, studying the figures on the back of the envelope, 
came forward again. Absorbed only in his own distress, 
he ignored the editor and the cow-puncher. 

“ Say,” he hazarded, “ how about this ? I make 


“We’ve told you what our rates are, Mr. Dyke,” ex- 


352 


The Octopus 


claimed the clerk angrily. That’s all the arrangement 
we will make. Take it or leave it.” He turned again 
to Genslinger, giving the ex-engineer his back. 

Dyke moved away and stood for a moment in the 
centre of the room, staring at the figures on the envelope. 

“ I don’t see,” he muttered, ‘‘ just what I’m going to 
do. No, I don’t see what I’m going to do at all.” 

Ruggles came in, bringing with him two other men in 
whom Dyke recognised dummy buyers of the Los Muer- 
tos and Osterman ranchos. They brushed by him, jost- 
ling his elbow, and as he went out of the door he heard 
them exchange jovial greetings with Delaney, Gen- 
slinger, and S. Behrman. 

Dyke went down the stairs to the street and proceeded 
onward aimlessly in the direction of the Yosemite House, 
fingering the yellow envelope and looking vacantly at the 
sidewalk. 

There was a stoop to his massive shoulders. His great 
arms dangled loosely at his sides, the palms of his hands 
open. 

As he went along, a certain feeling of shame touched 
him. Surely his predicament must be apparent to every 
passer-by. No doubt, every one recognised the unsuc- 
cessful man in the very way he slouched along. The 
young girls in lawns, muslins, and garden hats, returning 
from the Post Office, their hands full of letters, must 
surely see in him the type of the failure, the bankrupt. 

Then brusquely his tardy rage flamed up. By God, 
no, it was not his fault; he had made no mistake. His 
energy, industry, and foresight had been sound. He had 
been merely the object of a colossal trick, a sordid in- 
justice, a victim of the insatiate greed of the monster, 
caught and choked by one of those millions of tentacles 
suddenly reaching up from below, from out the dark be- 
neath his feet, coiling around his throat, throttling him, 


353 


A Story of California 

strangling him, sucking his blood. For a moment he 
thought of the courts, but instantly laughed at the idea. 
What court was immune from the power of the monster ? 
Ah, the rage of helplessness, the fury of impotence ! No 
help, no hope, — ruined in a brief instant — he a veritable 
giant, built of great sinews, powerful, in the full tide of 
his manhood, having all his health, all his wits. How 
could he now face his home? How could he tell his 
mother of this catastrophe? And Sidney — the little tad; 
how could he explain to her this wretchedness — how 
soften her disappointment? How keep the tears from 
out her eyes — how keep alive her confidence in him — her 
faith in his resources? 

Bitter, fierce, ominous, his wrath loomed up in his 
heart. His fists gripped tight together, his teeth 
clenched. Oh, for a moment to have his hand upon the 
throat of S. Behrman, wringing the breath from him, 
wrenching out the red life of him — staining the street 
with the blood sucked from the veins of the People! 

To the first friend that he met. Dyke told the tale of 
the tragedy, and to the next, and to the next. The affair 
went from mouth to mouth, spreading with electrical 
swiftness, overpassing and running ahead of Dyke him- 
self, so that by the time he reached the lobby of the 
Yosemite House, he found his story awaiting him. A 
group formed about him. In his immediate vicinity 
business for the instant was suspended. The group 
swelled. One after another of his friends added them- 
selves to it. Magnus Derrick joined it, and Annixter. 
Again and again. Dyke recounted the matter, beginning 
with the time when he was discharged from the same 
corporation’s service for refusing to accept an unfair 
wage. His voice quivered with exasperation ; his heavy 
frame shook with rage; his eyes were injected, blood- 
shot; his face flamed vermilion, while his deep bass 


354 


The Octopus 

rumbled throughout the running comments of his 
auditors like the thunderous reverberation of diapason. 

From all points of view, the story was discussed by 
those who listened to him, now in the heat of excite- 
ment, now calmly, judicially. One verdict, however, 
prevailed. It was voiced by Annixter : You’re stuck. 

You can roar till you’re black in the face, but you can’t 
buck against the Railroad. There’s nothing to be done.” 

“ You can shoot the ruffian, you can shoot S. Behr- 
man,” clamoured one of the group. “Yes, sir; by the 
Lord, you can shoot him.” 

“ Poor fool,” commented Annixter, turning away. 

Nothing to be done. No, there was nothing to be done 
— not one thing. Dyke, at last alone and driving his 
team out of the town, turned the business confusedly 
over in his mind from end to end. Advice, suggestion, 
even offers of financial aid had been showered upon him 
from all directions. Friends were not wanting who 
heatedly presented to his consideration all manner of 
ingenious plans, wonderful devices. They were worth- 
less. The tentacle held fast. He was stuck. 

By degrees, as his wagon carried him farther out into 
the country, and open empty fields, his anger lapsed, and 
the numbness of bewilderment returned. He could not 
look one hour ahead into the future ; could formulate no 
plans even for the next day. He did not know what to 
do. He was stuck. 

With the limpness and inertia of a sack of sand, the 
reins slipping loosely in his dangling fingers, his eyes 
fixed, staring between the horses’ heads, he allowed him- 
self to be carried aimlessly along. He resigned himself. 
What did he care ? What was the use of going on ? He 
was stuck. 

The team he was driving had once belonged to the 
Los Muertos stables, and unguided as the horses were. 


355 


A Story of California 

they took the county road towards Derrick’s ranch 
house. Dyke, all abroad, was unaware of the fact till, 
drawn by the smell of water, the horses halted by the 
trough in front of Caraher’s saloon. 

The ex-engineer dismounted, looking about him, re- 
alising where he was. So much the worse; it did not 
matter. Now that he had come so far it was as short to 
go home by this route as to return on his tracks. Slowly 
he unchecked the horses and stood at their heads, watch- 
ing them drink. 

'‘I don’t see,” he muttered, '‘just what I am going 
to do.” 

Caraher appeared at the door of his place, his red face, 
red beard, and flaming cravat standing sharply out from 
the shadow of the doorway. He called a welcome to 
Dyke. 

" Hello, Captain.” 

Dyke looked up, nodding his head listlessly. 

"Hello, Caraher,” he answered. 

"Well,” continued the saloonkeeper, coming forward 
a step, " what’s the news in town ? ” 

Dyke told him. Caraher’s red face suddenly took on a 
darker colour. The red glint in his eyes shot from under 
his eyebrows. Furious, he vented a rolling explosion of 
oaths. 

"And now it’s your turn,” he vociferated. "They 
ain’t after only the big wheat-growers, the rich men. By 
God, they’ll even pick the poor man’s pocket. Oh, they’ll 
get their bellies full some day. It can’t last forever. 
They’ll wake up the wrong kind of man some morning, 
the man that’s got guts in him, that will hit back when 
he’s kicked and that will talk to ’em with a torch in one 
hand and a stick of dynamite in the other.” He raised 
his clenched fists in the air. "So help me, God,” he 
cried, "when I think it all over I go crazy, I see red. 


356 The Octopus 

Oh, if the people only knew their strength. Oh, if I 
could wake 'em up. There’s not only Shelgrim, but 
there’s others. All the magnates, all the butchers, all the 
blood-suckers, by the thousands. Their day will come, 
by God, it will.” 

By now, the ex-engineer and the bar-keeper had retired 
to the saloon back of the grocery to talk over the details 
of this new outrage. Dyke, still a little dazed, sat down 
by one of the tables, preoccupied, saying but little, and 
Caraher as a matter of course set the whiskey bottle at 
his elbow. 

It happened that at this same moment, Presley, return- 
ing to Los Muertos from Bonneville, his pockets full of 
mail, stopped in at the grocery to buy some black lead 
for his bicycle. In the saloon, on the other side of the 
narrow partition, he overheard the conversation between 
Dyke and Caraher. The door was open. He caught 
every word distinctly. 

'' Tell us all about it. Dyke,” urged Caraher. 

For the fiftieth time Dyke told the story. Already it 
had crystallised into a certain form. He used the same 
phrases with each repetition, the same sentences, the same 
words. In his mind it became set. Thus he would tell 
it to any one who would listen from now on, week after 
week, year after year, all the rest of his life — “ And I 
based my calculations on a two-cent rate. So soon as 
they saw I was to make money they doubled the tariff — 
all the traffic would bear — and I mortgaged to S. Behr- 
man — ruined me with a turn of the hand — stuck, cinched, 
and not one thing to be done.” 

As he talked, he drank glass after glass of whiskey, and 
the honest rage, the open, above-board fury of his 
mind coagulated, thickened, and sunk to a dull, evil 
hatred, a wicked, oblique malevolence. Caraher, sure 
now of winning a disciple, replenished his glass. 


357 


A Story of California 

** Do you blame us now/' he cried, “ us others, the 
Reds? Ah, yes, it’s all very well for your middle class 
to preach moderation. I could do it, too. You could do 
it, too, if your belly was fed, if your property was safe, 
if your wife had not been murdered, if your children were 
not starving. Easy enough then to preach law-abiding 
methods, legal redress, and all such rot. But how about 
usf he vociferated. ‘‘Ah, yes, Fm a loud-mouthed 
rum-seller, ain’t I? Fm a wild-eyed striker, ain’t I? 
Fm a blood-thirsty anarchist, ain’t I? Wait till you’ve 
seen your wife brought home to you with the face you 
used to kiss smashed in by a horse’s hoof — killed by the 
Trust, as it happened to me. Then talk about modera- 
tion ! And you. Dyke, black-listed engineer, discharged 
employee, ruined agriculturist, wait till you see your little 
tad and your mother turned out of doors when S. Behr- 
man forecloses. Wait till you see ’em getting thin and 
white, and till you hear your little girl ask you why you 
all don’t eat a little more and that she wants her dinner 
and you can’t give it to her. Wait till you see — at the 
same time that your family is dying for lack of bread — a 
hundred thousand acres of wheat — millions of bushels of 
food — grabbed and gobbled by the Railroad Trust, and 
then talk of moderation. That talk is just what the 
Trust wants to hear. It ain’t frightened of that. There’s 
one thing only it does listen to, one thing it is frightened 
of — the people with dynamite in their hands, — six inches 
of plugged gaspipe. That talks.” 

Dyke did not reply. He filled another pony of whiskey 
and drank it in two gulps. His frown had lowered to a 
scowl, his face was a dark red, his head had sunk, bull- 
like, between his massive shoulders ; without winking he 
gazed long and with troubled eyes at his knotted, muscu* 
lar hands, lying open on the table before him, idle, their 
occupation gone. 


358 


The Octopus 

Presley forgot his black lead. He listened to Caraher. 
Through the open door he caught a glimpse of Dyke's 
back, broad, muscled, bowed down, the great shoulders 
stooping. 

The whole drama of the doubled freight rate leaped 
salient and distinct in the eye of his mind. And this was 
but one instance, an isolated case. Because he was near 
at hand he happened to see it. How many others were 
there, the length and breadth of the State ? Constantly 
this sort of thing must occur — little industries choked 
out in their very beginnings, the air full of the death rat- 
tles of little enterprises, expiring unobserved in far-off 
counties, up in canons and arroyos of the foothills, for- 
gotten by every one but the monster who was daunted 
by the magnitude of no business, however great, who 
overlooked no opportunity of plunder, however petty, 
who with one tentacle grabbed a hundred thousand 
acres of wheat, and with another pilfered a pocketful of 
growing hops. 

He went away without a word, his head bent, his 
hands clutched tightly on the cork grips of the handle 
bars of his bicycle. His lips were white. In his heart 
a blind demon of revolt raged tumultuous, shrieking 
blasphemies. 

At Los Muertos, Presley overtook Annixter. As he 
guided his wheel up the driveway to Derrick's ranch 
house, he saw the master of Quien Sabe and Harran in 
conversation on the steps of the porch. Magnus stood 
in the doorway, talking to his wife. 

Occupied with the press of business and involved in 
the final conference with the League's lawyers on the eve 
of the latter's departure for Washington, Annixter had 
missed the train that was to take him back to Guadala- 
jara and Quien Sabe. Accordingly, he had accepted the 
Governor's invitation to return with him on his buck- 


359 


A Story of California 

board to Los Muertos, and before leaving Bonneville had 
telephoned to his ranch to have young Vacca bring the 
buckskin, by way of the Lower Road, to meet him at Los 
Muertos. He found her waiting there for him, but be- 
fore going on, delayed a few moments to tell Harran of 
Dyke’s affair. 

“ I wonder what he will do now ? ” observed Harran 
when his first outburst of indignation had subsided. 

“ Nothing,” declared Annixter. He’s stuck.” 

“ That eats up every cent of Dyke’s earnings,” Harran 
went on. He has been ten years saving them. Oh, I 
told him to make sure of the Railroad when he first spoke 
to me about growing hops.” 

“ I’ve just seen him,” said Presley, as he joined the 
others. “ He was at Caraher’s. I only saw his back. 
He was drinking at a table and his back was towards me. 
But the man looked broken — absolutely crushed. It is 
terrible, terrible.” 

“ He was at Caraher’s, was he ? ” demanded Annixter. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Drinking, hey ? ” 

'' I think so. Yes, I saw a bottle.” 

Drinking at Caraher’s,” exclaimed Annixter, ran- 
corously ; I can see his finish.” 

There was a silence. It seemed as if nothing more was 
to be said. They paused, looking thoughtfully on the 
ground. 

In silence, grim, bitter, infinitely sad, the three men, 
as if at that moment actually standing in the bar-room 
of Caraher’s roadside saloon, contemplated the slow 
sinking, the inevitable collapse and submerging of one of 
their companions, the wreck of a career, the ruin of an 
individual; an honest man, strong, fearless, upright, 
struck down by a colossal power, perverted by an evil 
influence, go reeling to his ruin. 


360 


The Octopus 


“ I see his finish,” repeated Annixter. “ Exit Dyke, 
and score another tally for S. Behrman, Shelgrim and 
Co.” 

He moved away impatiently, loosening the tie-rope 
with which the buckskin was fastened. He swung him- 
self up. 

“ God for us all,” he declared as he rode away, '' and 
the devil take the hindmost. Good-bye, Fm going home. 
I still have one a little longer.” 

He galloped away along the LxDwer Road, in the direc- 
tion of Quien Sabe, emerging from the grove of cypress 
and eucalyptus about the ranch house, and coming out 
upon the bare brown plain of the wheat land, stretching 
away from him in apparent barrenness on either hand. 

It was late in the day, already his shadow was long 
upon the padded dust of the road in front of him. On 
ahead, a long ways off, and a little to the north, the ven- 
erable campanile of the Mission San Juan was glinting 
radiant in the last rays of the sun, while behind him, 
towards the north and west, the gilded dome of the court- 
house at Bonneville stood silhouetted in purplish ‘black 
against the flaming west. Annixter spurred the buck- 
skin forward. He feared he might be late to his supper. 
He wondered if it would be brought to him by Hilma. 

Hilma! The name struck across in his brain with a 
pleasant, glowing tremour. All through that day of 
activity, of strenuous business, the minute and cautious 
planning of the final campaign in the great war of the 
League and the Trust, the idea of her and the recollec- 
tion of her had been the undercurrent of his thoughts. 
At last he was alone. He could put all other things be- 
hind him and occupy himself solely with her. 

In that glory of the day’s end, in that chaos of sun- 
shine, he saw her again. Unimaginative, crude, direct, 
his fancy, nevertheless, placed her before him, steeped*“in 


A Story of California 361 

sunshine, saturated with glorious light, brilliant, radiant, 
alluring. He saw the sweet simplicity of her carriage, 
the statuesque evenness of the contours of her figure, the 
single, deep swell of her bosom, the solid masses of her 
hair. He remembered the small contradictory sugges- 
tions of feminine daintiness he had so often remarked 
about her, her slim, narrow feet, the little steel buckles 
of her low shoes, the knot of black ribbon she had begun 
to wear of late on the back of her head, and he heard her 
voice, low-pitched, velvety, a sweet, murmuring huski- 
ness that seemed to come more from her chest than from 
her throat. / 

The buckskin’s hoofs clattered upon the gravelly flats 
of Broderson’s Creek underneath the Long Trestle. An- 
nixter’s mind went back to the scene of the previous even- 
ing, when he had come upon her at this place. He set 
his teeth with anger and disappointment. Why had she 
not been able to understand? What was the matter with 
these women, always set upon this marrying notion? 
Was it not enough that he wanted her more than any 
other girl he knew and that she wanted him? She had 
said as much. Did she think she was going to be mis- 
tress of Quien Sabe? Ah, that was it. She was after 
his property, was for marrying him because of his money. 
His unconquerable suspicion of the woman, his innate 
distrust of the feminine element would not be done away 
with. What fathomless duplicity was hers, that she 
could appear so innocent. It was almost unbelievable; 
in fact, zvas it believable? 

For the first time doubt assailed him. Suppose Hilma 
was indeed all that she appeared to be. Suppose it was 
not with her a question of his property, after all ; it was 
a poor time to think of marrying him for his property 
when all Quien Sabe hung in the issue of the next few 
months. Suppose she had been sincere. But he caught 


362 


The Octopus 


himself up. Was he to be fooled by a feemale girl at this 
late date? He, Buck Annixter, crafty, hard-headed, a 
man of affairs? Not much. Whatever transpired he 
would remain the master. 

He reached Quien Sabe in this frame of mind. But 
at this hour, Annixter, for all his resolutions, could no 
longer control his thoughts. As he stripped the saddle 
from the buckskin and led her to the watering trough 
by the stable corral, his heart was beating thick at the 
very notion of being near Hilma again. It was growing 
dark, but covertly he glanced here and there out of the 
corners of his eyes to see if she was anywhere about. 
Annixter — how, he could not tell — had become possessed 
of the idea that Hilma would not inform her parents of 
what had passed between them the previous evening 
under the Long Trestle. He had no idea that matters 
were at an end between himself and the young woman. 
He must apologise, he saw that clearly enough, must eat 
crow, as he told himself. Well, he would eat crow. 
He was not afraid of her any longer, now that she had 
made her confession to him. He would see her as soon 
as possible and get this business straightened out, and 
begin again from a new starting point. What he wanted 
with Hilma, Annixter did not define clearly in his mind. 
At one time he had known perfectly well what he wanted. 
Now, the goal of his desires had become vague. He 
could not say exactly what it was. He preferred that 
things should go forward without much idea of conse- 
quences; if consequences came, they would do so natu- 
rally enough, and of themselves; all that he positively 
knew was that Hilma occupied his thoughts morning, 
noon, and night ; that he was happy when he was with 
her, and miserable when away from her. 

The Chinese cook served his supper in silence. An- 
nixter ate and drank and lighted a cigar, and after his 


A Story of California 


363 


meal sat on the porch of his house,’ smoking and enjoy- 
ing the twilight. The evening was beautiful, warm, the 
sky one powder of stars. From the direction of the sta- 
bles he heard one of the Portuguese hands picking a 
guitar. 

But he wanted to see Hilma. The idea of going to 
bed without at least a glimpse of her became distasteful 
to him. Annixter got up and descending from the porch 
began to walk aimlessly about between the ranch build- 
ings, with eye and ear alert. Possibly he might meet her 
somewheres. 

The Trees' little house, toward which inevitably An- 
nixter directed his steps, was dark. Had they all gone to 
bed so soon ? He made a wide circuit about it, listening, 
but heard no sound. The door of the dairy-house stood 
ajar. He pushed it open, and stepped into the odorous 
darkness of its interior. The pans and deep cans of 
polished metal glowed faintly from the corners and from 
the walls. The smell of new cheese was pungent in his 
nostrils. Everything was quiet. There was nobody 
there. He went out again, closing the door, and stood 
for a moment in the space between the dairy-house and 
the new barn, uncertain as to what he should do next. 

As he waited there, his foreman came out of the men's 
bunk house, on the other side of the kitchens, and crossed 
over toward the barn. Hello, Billy," muttered Annix- 
ter as he passed. 

“ Oh, good evening, Mr. Annixter," said the other, 
pausing in front of him. I didn't know you were back. 
By the way," he added, speaking as though the matter 
was already known to Annixter, “ I see old man Tree and 
his family have left us. Are they going to be gone long ? 
Have they left for good?" 

‘'What's that?" Annixter exclaimed. “When did 
they go? Did all of them go, all three?” 


364 The Octopus 

“Why, I thought you knew. Sure, they all left on 
the afternoon train for San Francisco. Cleared out in a 
hurry — took all their crunks. Yes, all three went — the 
young lady, too. They gave me notice early this morn- 
ing. They ain’t ought to have done that. I don’t know 
who I’m to get to run the dairy on such short notice. Do 
you know any one, Mr. Annixter?” 

“Well, why in hell did you let them go?” vociferated 
Annixter. “Why didn’t you keep them here till I got 
back? Why didn’t you find out if they were going for 
good? I can’t be everywhere. What do I feed you for 
if it ain’t to look after things I can’t attend to? ” 

He turned on his heel and strode away straight before 
him, not caring where he was going. He tramped out 
from the group of ranch buildings ; holding on over the 
open reach of his ranch, his teeth set, his heels digging 
furiously into the ground. The minutes passed. He 
walked on swiftly, muttering to himself from time to 
time. 

“ Gone, by the Lord. Gone, by the Lord. By the 
Lord Harry, she’s cleared out.” 

As yet his head was empty of all thought. He could 
not steady his wits to consider this new turn of affairs. 
He did not even try. 

“ Gone, by the Lord,” he exclaimed. “ By the Lord, 
she’s cleared out.” 

He found the irrigating ditch, and the beaten path 
made by the ditch tenders that bordered it, and followed 
it some five minutes ; then struck off at right angles over 
the rugged surface of the ranch land, to where a great 
white stone jutted from the ground. There he sat down, 
and leaning forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and 
looked out vaguely into the night, his thoughts swiftly 
readjusting themselves. 

He was alone. The silence of the night, the infinite 


3^5 


A Story of California 

repose of the flat, bare earth — two immensities — widened 
around and above him like illimitable seas. A grey half- 
light, mysterious, grave, flooded downward from the 
stars. 

Annixter was in torment. Now, there could be 
no longer any doubt — now it was Hilma or nothing. 
Once out of his reach, once lost to him, and the recollec- 
tion of her assailed him with unconquerable vehemence. 
Much as she had occupied his mind, he had never realised 
till now how vast had been the place she had filled in his 
life. He had told her as much, but even then he did not 
believe it. 

Suddenly, a bitter rage against himself overwhelmed 
him as he thought of the hurt he had given her the previ- 
ous evening. He should have managed differently. 
How, he did not know, but the sense of the outrage he 
had put upon her abruptly recoiled against him with 
cruel force. Now, he was sorry for it, infinitely sorry, 
passionately sorry. He had hurt her. He had brought 
the tears to her eyes. He had so flagrantly insulted her 
that she could no longer bear to breathe the same air 
with him. She had told her parents all. She had left 
Quien Sabe — had left him for good, at the very moment 
when he believed he had won her. Brute, beast that he 
was, he had driven her away. 

An hour went by ; then two, then four, then six. An- 
nixter still sat in his place, groping and battling in a con- 
fusion of spirit, the like of which he had never felt before. 
He did not know what was the matter with him. He 
could not find his way out of the dark and out of the 
turmoil that wheeled around him. He had had no ex- 
perience with women. There was no precedent to guide 
him. How was he to get out of this? What was the 
clew that would set everything straight again ? 

That he would give Hilma up, never once entered his 


366 


The Octopus 


head. Have her he would. She had given herself to 
him. Everything should have been easy after that, and 
instead, here he was alone in the night, wrestling with 
himself, in deeper trouble han ever, and Hilma farther 
than ever away from him. 

It was true, he might have Hilma, even now, if he 
was willing to marry her. But marriage, to his mind, 
had been always a vague, most remote possibility, almost 
as vague and as remote as his death, — a thing that hap- 
pened to some men, but that would surely never occur 
to him, or, if it did, it would be after long years had 
passed, when he was older, more settled, more mature — ■ 
an event that belonged to the period of his middle life, 
distant as yet. 

He had never faced the question of his marriage. He 
had kept it at an immense distance from him. It had 
never been a part of his order of things. He was not a 
marrying man. 

But Hilma was an ever-present reality, as near to him 
as his right hand. Marriage was a formless, far distant 
abstraction. Hilma a tangible, imminent fact. Before 
he could think of the two as one; before he could con- 
sider the idea of marriage, side by side with the idea of 
Hilma, measureless distances had to be traversed, things 
as disassociated in his mind as fire and water, had to be 
fused together; and between the two he was torn as if 
upon a rack. 

Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, the Imagination, 
unused, unwilling machine, began to work. The brain's 
activity lapsed proportionately. He began to think less, 
and feel more. In that rugged composition, confused, 
dark, harsh, a furrow had been driven deep, a little seed 
planted, a little seed at first weak, forgott^, lost in the 
lower dark places of his character. 

But as the Intellect moved slower, its functions grow- 


A Story of California 


367 


ing numb, the idea of self dwindled. Annixter no longer 
considered himself; no longer considered the notion of 
marriage from the point of view of his own comfort, his 
own wishes^ his own advantage. He realised that in his 
new-found desire to make her happy, he was sincere. 
There was something in that idea, after all. To make 
some one happy — how about that now ? It was worth 
thinking of. 

Far away, low down in the east, a dim belt, a grey 
light began to whiten over the horizon. The tower of 
the Mission stood black against it. The dawn was com- 
ing. The baffling obscurity of the night was passing. 
Hidden things were coming into view. 

Annixter, his eyes half-closed, his chin upon his fist, 
allowed his imagination full play. How would it be if he 
should take Hilma into his life, this beautiful young girl, 
pure as he now knew her to be ; innocent, noble with the 
inborn nobility of dawning womanhood ? An over- 
whelming sense of his own unworthiness suddenly bore 
down upon him with crushing force, as he thought of 
this. He had gone about the whole affair wrongly. He 
had been mistaken from the very first. She was infinitely 
above him. He did not want — he should not desire to 
be the master. It was she, his servant, poor, simple, 
lowly even, who should condescend to him. 

Abruptly there was presented to his mind’s eye a pic- 
ture of the years to come, if he now should follow his best, 
his highest, his most unselfish impulse. He saw Hilma, 
his own, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, 
all barriers down between them, he giving himself to her 
as freely, as nobly, as she had given herself to him. By 
a supreme effort, not of the will, but of the emotion, he 
fought his way across that vast gulf that for a time had 
gaped between Hilma and the idea of his marriage. In- 
stantly, like the swift blending of beautiful colours, like 


368 


The Octopus 

the harmony of beautiful chords of music, the two ideas 
melted into one, and in that moment into his harsh, un- 
lovely world a new idea was born. Annixter stood sud- 
denly upright, a mighty tenderness, a gentleness of spirit, 
such as he had never conceived of, in his heart strained, 
swelled, and in a moment seemed to burst. Out of the 
dark furrows of his soul, up from the deep rugged re- 
cesses of his being, something rose, expanding. He 
opened his arms wide. An immense happiness overpow- 
ered him. Actual tears came to his eyes. Without 
knowing why, he was not ashamed of it. This poor, 
crude fellow, harsh, hard, narrow, with his unlovely na- 
ture, his fierce truculency, his selfishness, his obstinacy, 
abruptly knew that all the sweetness of life, all the great 
vivifying eternal force of humanity had burst into life 
within him. 

The little seed, long since planted, gathering strength 
quietly, had at last germinated. 

Then as the realisation of this hardened into certainty, 
in the growing light of the new day that had just dawned 
for him, Annixter uttered a cry. Now at length, he 
knew the meaning of it all. 

“ Why — I — I, I love her,” he cried. Never until then 
had it occurred to him. Never until then, in all his 
thoughts of Hilma, had that great word passed his lips. 

It was a Memnonian cry, the greeting of the hard, 
harsh image of man, rough-hewn, flinty, granitic, utter- 
ing a note of joy, acclaiming the new risen sun. 

By now it was almost day. The east glowed opales- 
cent. All about him Annixter saw the land inundated 
with light. But there was a change. Overnight some- 
thing had occurred. In his perturbation the change 
seemed to him, at first, elusive, almost fanciful, unreal. 
But now as the light spread, he looked again at the 
gigantic scroll of ranch lands unrolled before him from 


369 


A Story of California 

edge to edge of the horizon. The change was not fanci- 
ful. The change was real. The earth was no longer 
bare. The land was no longer barren, — no longer empty, 
no longer dull brown. All at once Annixter shouted 
aloud. 

There it was, the Wheat, the Wheat! The little seed 
long planted, germinating in the deep, dark furrows of 
the soil, straining, swelling, suddenly in one night had 
burst upward to the light. The wheat had come up. It 
was there before him, around him, everywhere, illimita- 
ble, immeasurable. The winter brownness of the ground 
was overlaid with a little shimmer of green. The prom- 
ise of the sowing was being fulfilled. The earth, the 
loyal mother, who never failed, who never disappointed, 
was keeping her faith again. Once more the strength 
of nations was renewed. Once more the force of the 
world was revivified. Once more the Titan, benignant, 
calm, stirred and woke, and the morning abruptly blazed 
into glory upon the spectacle of a man whose heart 
leaped exuberant with the love of a woman, and an ex- 
ulting earth gleaming transcendent with the radiant 
magnificence of an inviolable pledge. 


24 


in 


Presley’s room in the ranch house of Los Muertos 
was in the second story of the building. It was a corner 
room ; one of its windows facing the south, the other the 
east. Its appointments were of the simplest. In one 
angle was the small white painted iron bed, covered with 
a white counterpane. The walls were hung with a white 
paper figured with knots of pale green leaves, very gay 
and bright. There was a straw matting on the floor. 
White muslin half-curtains hung in the windows, upon 
the sills of which certain plants bearing pink waxen 
flowers of which Presley did not know the name, grew 
in oblong green boxes. The walls were unadorned, save 
by two pictures, one a reproduction of the “ Reading 
from Homer,” the other a charcoal drawing of the Mis- 
sion of San Juan de Guadalajara, which Presley had 
made himself. By the east window stood the plainest 
of deal tables, innocent of any cloth or covering, such as 
might have been used in a kitchen. It was Presley’s 
work table, and was invariably littered with papers, half- 
finished manuscripts, drafts of poems, notebooks, pens, 
half-smoked cigarettes, and the like. Near at hand, upon 
a shelf, were his books. There were but two chairs in 
the room — the straight backed wooden chair, that stood 
in front of the table, angular, upright, and in which it 
was impossible to take one’s ease, and the long comforta- 
ble wicker steamer chair, stretching its length in front 
of the south window. Presley was immensely fond of 
this room. It amused and interested him to maintain its 


371 


A Story of California 

air of rigorous simplicity and freshness. He abhorred 
cluttered bric-a-brac and meaningless ohjets d’art. Once 
in so often he submitted his room to a vigorous inspec- 
tion; setting it ^o rights, removing everything but the 
essentials, the few ornaments which, in a way, were part 
of his life. 

His writing had by this time undergone a complete 
change. The notes for his great Song of the West, the 
epic poem he once had hoped to write he had flung aside, 
together with all the abortive attempts at its beginning. 
Also he had torn up a great quantity of “ fugitive 
verses, preserving only a certain half-finished poem, that 
he called “ The Toilers.” This poem was a comment 
upon the social fabric, and had been inspired by the sight 
of a painting he had seen in Cedarquist’s art gallery. 
He had written all but the last verse. 

On the day that he had overheard the conversation be- 
tween Dyke and Caraher, in the latter’s saloon, which 
had acquainted him with the monstrous injustice of the 
increased tariff, Presley had returned to Los Muertos, 
white and trembling, roused to a pitch of exaltation, the 
like of which he had never known in all his life. His 
wrath was little short of even Caraher’s. He too “ saw 
red” ; a mighty spirit of revolt heaved tumultuous within 
him. It did not seem possible that this outrage could 
go on much longer. The oppression was incredible ; the 
plain story of it set down in truthful statement of fact 
would not be believed by the outside world. 

He went up to his little room and paced the floor with 
clenched fists and burning face, till at last, the repression 
of his contending thoughts all but suffocated him, and 
he flung himself before his table and began to write. 
For a time, his pen seemed to travel of itself ; words came 
to Mm without searching, shaping themselves into 
phrases, — the phrases building themselves up to great, 


37 ^ 


The Octopus 

forcible sentences, full of eloquence, of fire, of passion. 
As his prose grew more exalted, it passed easily into the 
domain of poetry. Soon the cadence of his paragraphs 
settled to an ordered beat and rhythm, and in the end 
Presley had thrust aside his journal and was once more 
writing verse. 

He picked up his incomplete poem of “ The Toilers,’^ 
read it hastily a couple of times to catch its swing, then 
the Idea of the last verse — the Idea for which he so long 
had sought in vain — abruptly springing to his brain, 
wrote it off without so much as replenishing his pen with 
ink. He added still another verse, bringing the poem to 
a definite close, resuming its entire conception, and end- 
ing with a single majestic thought, simple, noble, digni- 
fied, absolutely convincing. 

Presley laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair, 
with the certainty that for one moment he had touched 
untrod heights. His hands were cold, his head on fire, 
his heart leaping tumultuous in his breast. 

Now at last, he had achieved. He saw why he had 
never grasped the inspiration for his vast, vague, imper- 
sonal Song of the West. At the time when he sought 
for it, his convictions had not been aroused ; he had not 
then cared for the People. His sympathies had not been 
touched. Small wonder that he had missed it. Now he 
was of the People; he had been stirred to his lowest 
depths. His earnestness was almost a frenzy. He 
believed^ and so to him all things were possible at 
once. 

Then the artist in him reasserted itself. He became 
more interested in his poem, as such, than in the cause 
that had inspired it. He went over it again, retouching 
it carefully, changing a word here and there, and im- 
proving its rhythm. For the moment, he forgot the 
People, forgot his rage, his agitation of the previous 


A Story of California 373 

hour, he remembered only that he had written a great 
poem. 

Then doubt intruded. After all, was it so great? 
Did not its sublimity overpass a little the bounds of the 
ridiculous? Had he seen true? Had he failed again? 
He re-read the poem carefully ; and it seemed all at once 
to lose force. 

By now, Presley could not tell whether what he had 
written was true poetry or doggerel. He distrusted pro- 
foundly his own judgment. He must have the opinion 
of some one else, some one competent to judge. He 
could not wait; to-morrow would not do. He must 
know to a certainty before he could rest that night. 

He made a careful copy of what he had written, and 
putting on his hat and laced boots, went down stairs and 
out upon the lawn, crossing over to the stables. He 
found Phelps there, washing down the buckboard. 

Do you know where Vanamee is to-day ? ” he asked 
the latter. Phelps put his chin in the air. 

“ Ask me something easy,” he responded. “ He might 
be at Guadalajara, or he might be up at Osterman’s, or 
he might be a hundred miles away from either place. I 
know where he ought to be, Mr. Presley, but that ain’t 
saying where the crazy gesabe is. He ought to be range- 
riding over east of Four, at the head waters of Mission 
Creek.” 

'' ril try for him there, at all events,” answered Pres- 
ley. If you see Harran when he comes in, tell him I 
may not be back in time for supper.” 

Presley found the pony in the corral, cinched the sad- 
dle upon him, and went off over the Lower Road, going 
eastward at a brisk canter. 

At Hooven’s he called a “ How do you do ” to Minna, 
whom he saw lying in a slat hammock under the mam- 
moth live oak^ her foot in bandages ; and then galloped 


374 


The Octopus 

on over the bridge across the irrigating ditch, wondering 
vaguely what would become of such a pretty girl as 
Minna, and if in the end she would marry the Portuguese 
foreman in charge of the ditching-gang. He told him- 
self that he hoped she would, and that speedily. There 
was no lack of comment as to Minna Hooven about the 
ranches. Certainly she was a good girl, but she was 
seen at all hours here and there about Bonneville and 
Guadalajara, skylarking with the Portuguese farm hands 
of Quien Sabe and Los Muertos. She was very pretty ; 
the men made fools of themselves over her. Presley 
hoped they would not end by making a fool of her. 

Just beyond the irrigating ditch, Presley left the Lower 
Road, and following a trail that branched off southeast- 
erly from this point, held on across the Fourth Division 
of the ranch, keeping the Mission Creek on his left. A 
few miles farther on, he went through a gate in a barbed 
wire fence, and at once engaged himself in a system of 
little arroyos and low rolling hills, that steadily lifted 
and increased in size as he proceeded. This higher 
ground was the advance guard of the Sierra foothills, 
and served as the stock range for Los Muertos. The 
hills were huge rolling hummocks of bare ground, cov- 
ered only by wild oats. At long intervals, were isolated 
live oaks. In the canons and arroyos, the chaparral 
and manzanita grew in dark olive-green thickets. The 
ground was honey-combed with gopher-holes, and the 
gophers themselves were everywhere. Occasionally a 
jack rabbit bounded across the open, from one growth of 
chaparral to another, taking long leaps, his ears erect. 
High overhead, a hawk or two swung at anchor, and 
once, with a startling rush of wings, a covey of quail 
flushed from the brush at the side of the trail. 

On the hillsides, in thinly scattered groups were the 
cattle, grazing deliberately, working slowly toward the 


A Story of California 


375 


water-holes for their evening drink, the horses keeping 
to themselves, the colts nuzzling at their mothers’ bellies, 
whisking their tails, stamping their unshod feet. But 
once in a remoter field, solitary, magnificent, enormous, 
the short hair curling tight upon his forehead, his small 
red eyes twinkling, his vast neck heavy with muscles, 
Presley came upon the monarch, the king, the great Dur- 
ham bull, maintaining his lonely state, unapproachable^ 
austere. ^ 

Presley found the one-time shepherd by a water-hol€;j 
in a far distant corner of the range. He had made his 
simple camp for the night. His blue-grey army blanket 
lay spread under a live oak, his horse grazed near at 
hand. He himself sat on his heels before a little fire of 
dead manzanita roots^ cooking his coffee and bacon. 
Never had Presley conceived so keen an impression of 
loneliness as his crouching figure presented. The bald, 
bare landscape widened about him to infinity. Vanamee 
was a spot in it all, a tiny dot, a single atom of human 
organisation, floating endlessly on the ocean of an il- 
limitable nature. 

The two friends ate together, and Vanamee, having 
snared a brace of quails, dressed and then roasted them 
on a sharpened stick. After eating, they drank great 
refreshing draughts from the water-hole. Then, at 
length, Presley having lit his cigarette, and Vanamee his 
pipe, the former said: 

“ Vanamee, I have been writing again.” 

Vanamee turned his lean ascetic face toward him, his 
black eyes fixed attentively. 

'' I know,” he said, “your journal.” 

“ No, this is a poem. You remember, I told you about 
it once. ‘ The Toilers,’ I called it.” 

“ Oh, verse ! Well, I am glad you have gone back to 
it. It is your natural vehicle.” 


376 The Octopus 

^‘You remember the poem?’' asked Presley. “It was 
unfinished.” 

“ Yes, I remember it. There was better promise in it 
than anything you ever wrote. Now, I suppose, you 
have finished it.” 

Without reply, Presley brought it from out the breast 
pocket of his shooting coat. The moment seemed pro- 
pitious. The stillness of the vast, bare hills was pro- 
found. The sun was setting in a cloudless brazier of red 
light ; a golden dust pervaded all the landscape. Presley 
read his poem aloud. When he had finished, his friend 
looked at him. 

‘'What have you been doing lately?” he demanded. 
Presley, wondering, told of his various comings and 
goings. 

“ I don’t mean that,” returned the other. “ Something 
has happened to you, something has aroused you. I am 
right, am I not? Yes, I thought so. In this poem of 
yours, you have not been trying to make a sounding 
piece of literature. You wrote it under tremendous 
stress. Its very imperfections show that. It is better 
than a mere rhyme. It is an Utterance — a Message. It 
is Truth. You have come back to the primal heart of 
things, and you have seen clearly. Yes, it is a great 
poem.” 

“ Thank you,” exclaimed Presley fervidly. “ I had 
begun to mistrust myself.” 

“ Now,” observed Vanamee, “ I presume you will rush 
it into print. To have formulated a great thought, 
simply to have accomplished, is not enough.” 

“ I think I am sincere,” objected Presley. “If it is 
good it will do good to others. You said yourself it was 
a Message. If it has any value, I do not think it would 
be right to keep it back from even a very small and most 
indifferent public.” 


377 


A Story of California 

“ Don't publish it in the magazines at all events," Van- 
amee answered. “ Your inspiration has come from the 
People. Then let it go straight to the People — not the 
literary readers of the monthly periodicals, the rich, who 
would only be indirectly interested. If you must publish 
it, let it be in the daily press. Don't interrupt. I know 
what you will say. It will be that the daily press is com- 
mon, is vulgar, is undignified ; and I tell you that such a 
poem as this of yours, called as it is, ^ The Toilers,' must 
be read hy the Toilers. It must he common; it must be 
vulgarised. You must not stand upon your dignity with 
the People, if you are to reach them." 

“That is true, I suppose," Presley admitted, “but I 
can't get rid of the idea that it would be throwing my 
poem away. The great magazine gives me such — a — 
background; gives me such weight." 

“ Gives you such weight, gives you such background. 
Is it yourself you think of? You helper of the helpless. 
Is that your sincerity? You must sink yourself; must 
forget yourself and your own desire of fame, of admitted 
success. It is your poem, your message, that must pre- 
vail, — not you, who wrote it. You preach a doctrine of 
abnegation, of self-obliteration, and you sign your name 
to your words as high on the tablets as you can reach, so 
that all the world may see, not the poem, but the poet. 
Presley, there are many like you. The social reformer 
writes a book on the iniquity of the possession of land, 
and out of the proceeds, buys a corner lot. The econo- 
mist who laments the hardships of the poor, allows him- 
self to grow rich upon the sale of his book." 

But Presley would hear no further. 

“ No," he cried, “ I know I am sincere, and to prove it 
to you, I will publish my poem, as you say, in the daily 
press, and I will accept no money for it." 

They talked on for about an hour, while the evening 


378 


The Octopus 

wore away. Presley very soon noticed that Vanamee v/as 
again preoccupied. More than ever of late, his silence, 
his brooding had increased. By and by he rose abruptly, 
turning his head to the north, in the direction of the Mis- 
sion church of San Juan. 

“ I think,’" he said to Presley, that I must be going.’* 
Going? Where to at this time of night? ” 

“Off there.” Vanamee made an uncertain gesture 
toward the north. “ Good-bye,” and without another 
word he disappeared in the grey of the twilight. Presley 
was left alone wondering. He found his horse, and, 
tightening the girths, mounted and rode home under the 
sheen of the stars, thoughtful, his head bowed. Before 
he went to bed that night he sent “ The Toilers ” to the 
Sunday Editor of a daily newspaper in San Francisco. 

Upon leaving Presley, Vanamee, his thumbs hooked 
into his empty cartridge belt, strode swiftly down from 
the hills of the Los Muertos stock-range and on through 
the silent town of Guadalajara. His lean, swarthy face, 
with its hollow cheeks, fine, black, pointed beard, and sad 
eyes, was set to the northward. As was his custom, he 
was bareheaded, and the rapidity of his stride made a 
breeze in his long, black hair. He knew where he was 
going. He knew what he must live through that night. 

Again, the deathless grief that never slept leaped out 
of the shadows, and fastened upon his shoulders. It was 
scourging him back to that scene of a vanished happi- 
ness, a dead romance, a perished idyl, — the Mission gar- 
den in the shade of the venerable pear trees. 

But, besides this, other influences tugged at his heart. 
There was a mystery in the garden. In that spot the 
night was not always empty, the darkness not always 
silent. Something far off stirred and listened to his cry, 
at times drawing nearer to him. At first this presence 
had been a matter for terror; but of late, as he felt it 


379 


A Story of California 

gradually drawing nearer, the terror had at long intervals 
given place to a feeling of an almost ineffable sweetness. 
But distrusting his own senses, unwilling to submit him- 
self to such torturing, uncertain happiness, averse to the 
terrible confusion of spirit that followed upon a night 
spent in the garden, Vanamee had tried to keep away 
from the place. However, when the sorrow of his life 
reassailed him, and the thoughts and recollections of 
Angele brought the ache into his heart, and the tears to 
his eyes, the temptation to return to the garden in- 
variably gripped him close. There were times when he 
could not resist. Of themselves, his footsteps turned in 
that direction. It was almost as if he himself had been 
called. 

Guadalajara was silent, dark. Not even in Solotari’s 
was there a light. The town was asleep. Only the in- 
evitable guitar hummed from an unseen Mobe. Vanamee 
pushed on. The smell of the fields and open country, 
and a distant scent of flowers that he knew well, came 
to his nostrils, as he emerged from the town by way of 
the road that led on towards the Mission through Quien 
Sabe. On either side of him lay the brown earth, 
silently nurturing the implanted seed. Two days before 
it had rained copiously, and the soil, still moist, disen- 
gaged a pungent aroma of fecundity. 

Vanamee, following the road, passed through the col- 
lection of buildings of Annixter’s home ranch. Every- 
thing slept. At intervals, the aer-motor on the artesian 
well creaked audibly, as it turned in a languid breeze 
from the northeast. A cat, hunting field-mice, crept from 
the shadow of the gigantic barn and paused uncertainly 
in the open, the tip of her tail twitching. From within 
the barn itself came the sound of the friction of a heavy 
body and a stir of hoofs, as one of the dozing cows lay 
down with a long breath. 


38 o 


The Octopus 

Vanamee left the ranch house behind him and pro- 
ceeded on his way. Beyond him, to the right of the road, 
he could make out the higher ground in the Mission 
enclosure, and the watching tower of the Mission itself. 
The minutes passed. He went steadily forward. Then 
abruptly he paused, his head in the air, eye and ear alert. 
To that strange sixth sense of his, responsive as the leaves 
of the sensitive plant, had suddenly come the impression 
of a human being near at hand. He had neither seen nor 
heard, but for all that he stopped an instant in his tracks ; 
then, the sensation confirmed, went on again with slow 
steps, advancing warily. 

At last, his swiftly roving eyes lighted upon an object, 
just darker than the grey-brown of the night-ridden land. 
It was at some distance from the roadside. Vanamee 
approached it cautiously, leaving the road, treading care- 
fully upon the moist clods of earth underfoot. Twenty 
paces distant, he halted. 

Annixter was there, seated upon a round, white rock, 
his back towards him. He was leaning forward, his 
elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He did not 
move. Silent, motionless, he gazed out upon the flat, 
sombre land. 

It was the night wherein the master of Quien Sabe 
wrought out his salvation, struggling with Self from 
dusk to dawn. At the moment when Vanamee came 
upon him, the turmoil within him had only begun. The 
heart of the man had not yet wakened. The night was 
young, the dawn far distant, and all around him the fields 
of upturned clods lay bare and brown, empty of all life, 
unbroken by a single green shoot. 

For a moment, the life-circles of these two men, of so 
widely differing characters, touched each other, there in 
the silence of the night under the stars. Then silently 
Vanamee withdrew, going on his way, wondering at the 


A Story of California 381 

trouble that, like himself, drove this hardheaded man of 
affairs, untroubled by dreams, out into the night to brood 
over an empty land. 

Then speedily he forgot all else. The material world 
drew off from him. Reality dwindled to a point and van- 
ished like the vanishing of a star at moonrise. Earthly 
things dissolved and disappeared, as a strange, unnamed 
essence flowed in upon him. A new atmosphere for him 
pervaded his surroundings. He entered the world of the 
Vision, of the Legend, of the Miracle, where all things 
were possible. He stood at the gate of the Mission 
garden. 

Above him rose the ancient tower of the Mission 
church. Through the arches at its summit, where swung 
the Spanish queen’s bells, he saw the slow-burning stars. 
The silent bats, with flickering wings, threw their danc- 
ing shadows on the pallid surface of the venerable 
faqade. 

Not the faintest chirring of a cricket broke the silence. 
The bees were asleep. In the grasses, in the trees, deep 
in the calix of punka flower and magnolia bloom, the 
gnats, the caterpillars, the beetles, all the microscopic, 
multitudinous life of the daytime drowsed and dozed. 
Not even the minute scuffling of a lizard over the warm, 
worn pavement of the colonnade disturbed the infinite 
repose, the profound stillness. Only within the garden, 
the intermittent trickling of the fountain made itself 
heard, flowing steadily, marking off the lapse of seconds, 
the progress of hours, the cycle of years, the inevitable 
march of centuries. 

At one time, the doorway before which Vanamee now 
stood had been hermetically closed. But he, himself, had 
long since changed that. He stood before it for a mo- 
ment, steeping himself in the mystery and romance of the 
place, then raising he latch, pushed open the gate, en^ 


382 The Octopus 

tered, and closed it softly behind him. He was in the 
cloister garden. 

The stars were out^ strewn thick and close in the deep 
blue of the sky, the milky way glowing like a silver veil. 
Ursa Major wheeled gigantic in the north. The great 
nebula in Orion was a whorl of shimmering star dust. 
Venus flamed a lambent disk of pale saffron, low over the 
horizon. From edge to edge of the world marched the 
constellations, like the progress of emperors, and from the 
innumerable glory of their courses a mysterious sheen of 
diaphanous light disengaged itself, expanding over all the 
earth, serene, infinite, majestic. 

The little garden revealed itself but dimly beneath the 
brooding light, only half emerging from the shadow. 
The polished surfaces of the leaves of the pear trees 
winked faintly back the reflected light as the trees just 
stirred in the uncertain breeze. A blurred shield of silver 
marked the ripples of the fountain. Under the flood of 
dull blue lustre, the gravelled walks lay vague amid the 
grasses, like webs of white satin on the bed of a lake. 
Against the eastern wall the headstones of the graves, an 
indistinct procession of grey cowls ranged themselves. 

Vanamee crossed the garden, pausing to kiss the turf 
upon Angele’s grave. Then he approached the line of 
pear trees, and laid himself down in their shadow, his 
chin propped upon his hands, his eyes wandering over 
the expanse of the little valley that stretched away from 
the foot of the hill upon which the Mission was built. 

Once again he summoned the Vision. Once again he 
conjured up the Illusion. Once again, tortured with 
doubt, racked with a deathless grief, he craved an Answer 
of the night. Once again, mystic that he was, he sent 
his mind out from him across the enchanted sea of the 
Supernatural. Hope, of what he did not know, roused up 
within him. Surely, on such a night as this, the haflu- 


A Story of California 383 

cination must define itself. Surely, the Manifestation 
must be vouchsafed. 

His eyes closed, his will girding itself to a supreme 
effort, his senses exalted to a state of pleasing numbness, 
he called upon Angele to come to him, his voiceless cry 
penetrating far out into that sea of faint, ephemeral light 
that floated tideless over the little valley beneath him. 
Then motionless, prone upon the ground, he waited. 

Months had passed since that first night when, at 
length, an Answer had come to Vanamee. At first, 
startled out of all composure, troubled and stirred to his 
lowest depths, because of the very thing for which he 
sought, he resolved never again to put his strange powers 
to the test. But for all that, he had come a second night 
to the garden, and a third, and a fourth. At last, his 
visits were habitual. Night after night he was there, sur- 
rendering himself to the influences of the place, gradually 
convinced that something did actually answer when he 
called. His faith increased as the winter grew into 
spring. As the spring advanced and the nights became 
shorter, it crystallised into certainty. Would he have 
her again, his love, long dead? Would she come to him 
once more out of the grave, out of the night? He could 
not tell ; he could only hope. All that he knew was that 
his cry found an answer, that his outstretched hands, 
groping in the darkness, met the touch of other fingers. 
Patiently he waited. The nights became warmer as the 
spring drew on. The stars shone clearer. The nights 
seemed brighter. For nearly a month after the occasion 
of his first answer nothing new occurred. Some nights 
it failed him entirely ; upon others it was faint, illusive. 

Then, at last, the most subtle, the barest of perceptible 
changes began. His groping mind far-off there, wander- 
ing like a lost bird over the valley, touched upon some 
thing again, touched and held it, and this time drew it a 


384 


The Octopus 

single step closer to him. His heart beating, the blood 
surging in his temples, he watched with the eyes of his 
imagination, this gradual approach. What was coming 
to him ? Who was coming to him ? Shrouded in the ob- 
scurity of the- night, whose was the face now turned 
towards his? Whose the footsteps that with such in- 
finite slowness drew nearer to where he waited? He did 
not dare to say. 

His mind went back many years to that time before 
the tragedy of Angele’s death, before the mystery of the 
Other. He waited then as he waited now. But then he 
had not waited in vain. Then, as now, he had seemed to 
feel her approach, seemed to feel her drawing nearer and 
nearer to their rendezvous. Now, what would happen? 
He did not know. He waited. He waited, hoping all 
things. He waited, believing all things. He waited, en- 
during all things. He trusted in the Vision. 

Meanwhile, as spring advanced, the flowers in the Seed 
ranch began to come to life. Over the five hundred acres 
whereon the flowers were planted, the widening growth 
of vines and bushes spread like the waves of a green sea. 
Then, timidly, colours of the faintest tints began to ap- 
pear. Under the moonlight, Vanamee saw them ex- 
panding, delicate pink, faint blue, tenderest variations of 
lavender and yellow, white shimmering with reflections 
of gold, all subdued and pallid in the moonlight. 

By degrees, the night became impregnated with the 
perfume of the flowers. Illusive at first, evanescent as 
filaments of gossamer; then as the buds opened, em- 
phasising itself, breathing deeper, stronger. An ex- 
quisite mingling of many odours passed continually over 
the Mission, from the garden of the Seed ranch, meeting 
and blending with the aroma of its magnolia buds and 
punka blossoms. 

As the colours of the flowers of the Seed ranch deep- 


A Story of California 385 

ened, and as their odours penetrated deeper and more 
distinctly, as the starlight of each succeeding night grew 
brighter and the air became warmer, the illusion defined 
itself. By imperceptible degrees, as Vanamee waited 
under the shadows of the pear trees, the Answer grew 
nearer and nearer. He saw nothing but the distant glim- 
mer of the flowers. He heard nothing but the drip of 
the fountain. Nothing moved about him but the invisi- 
ble, slow-passing breaths of perfume ; yet he felt the ap' 
proach of the Vision. 

It came first to about the middle of the Seed ranch 
itself, some half a mile away, where the violets grew; 
shrinking, timid flowers, hiding close to the ground. Then 
it passed forward beyond the violets, and drew nearer 
and stood amid the mignonette, hardier blooms that 
dared look heavenward from out the leaves. A few 
nights later it left the mignonette behind, and advanced 
into the beds of white iris that pushed more boldly forth 
from the earth, their waxen petals claiming the attention. 
It advanced then a long step into the proud, challenging 
beauty of the carnations and roses; and at last, after 
many nights, Vanamee felt that it paused, as if trembling 
at its hardihood, full in the superb glory of the royal 
lilies themselves, that grew on the extreme border of the 
Seed ranch nearest to him. After this, there was a cer- 
tain long wait. Then, upon a dark midnight, it advanced 
again. Vanamee could scarcely repress a cry. Now, 
the illusion emerged from the flowers. It stood, not 
distant, but unseen, almost at the base of the hill upon 
whose crest he waited, in a depression of the ground 
where the shadows lay thickest. It was nearly within 
earshot. 

The nights passed. The spring grew warmer. In the 
daytime intermittent rains freshened all the earth. The 
flowers of the Seed ranch grew rapidly. Bud after bud 


386 


The Octopus 

burst forth, while those already opened expanded to full 
maturity. The colour of the Seed ranch deepened. 

One night, after hours of waiting, Vanamee felt upon 
his cheek the touch of a prolonged puff of warm wind, 
breathing across the little valley from out the east. It 
reached the Mission garden and stirred the branches of 
the pear trees. It seemed veritably to be compounded of 
the very essence of the flowers. Never had the aroma 
been so sweet, so pervasive. It passed and faded, leaving 
in its wake an absolute silence. Then, at length, the 
silence of the night, that silence to which Vanamee had 
so long appealed, was broken by a tiny sound. Alert, 
half-risen from the ground, he listened; for now, at 
length, he heard something. The sound repeated itself. 
It came from near at hand, from the thick shadow at the 
foot of the hill. What it was, he could not tell, but it did 
not belong to a single one of the infinite similar noises 
of the place with which he was so familiar. It was 
neither the rustle of a leaf, the snap of a parted twig, 
the drone of an insect, the dropping of a magnolia blos- 
som. It was a vibration merely, faint, elusive, impos- 
sible of definition ; a minute notch in the fine, keen edge 
of stillness. 

Again the nights passed. The summer stars became 
brighter. The warmth increased. The flowers of the 
Seed ranch grew still more. The five hundred acres of 
the ranch were carpeted with them. 

At length, upon a certain midnight, a new light began 
to spread in the sky. The thin scimitar of the moon rose, 
veiled and dim behind the earth-mists. The light in- 
creased. Distant objects, until now hidden, came into 
view, and as the radiance brightened, Vanamee, looking 
down upon the little valley, saw a spectacle of incom- 
parable beauty. All the buds of the Seed ranch had 
opened. The faint tints of the flowers had deepened, Kd 


387 


A Story of California 

asserted themselves. They challenged the eye. Pink be- 
came a royal red. Blue rose into purple. Yellow flamed 
into orange. Orange glowed golden and brilliant. The 
earth disappeared under great bands and fields of 
resplendent colour. Then, at length, the moon abruptly 
soared zenithward from out the veiling mist, passing 
from one filmy haze to another. For a moment there was 
a gleam of a golden light, and Vanamee, his eyes search- 
ing the shade at the foot of the hill, felt his heart sud- 
denly leap, and then hang poised, refusing to beat. In 
that instant of passing light, something had caught his 
eye. Something that moved, down there, half in and half 
out of the shadow, at the hill’s foot. It had come and 
gone in an instant. The haze once more screened the 
moonlight. The shade again engulfed the vision. What 
was it he had seen? He did not know. So brief had 
been that movement, the drowsy brain had not been 
quick enough to interpret the cipher message of the eye. 
Now it was gone. But something had been there. He 
had seen it. Was it the lifting of a strand of hair, the 
wave of a white hand, the flutter of a garment’s edge ? He 
could not tell, but it did not belong to any of those sights 
which he had seen so often in that place. It was neither 
the glancing of a moth’s wing, the nodding of a wind- 
touched blossom, nor the noiseless flitting of a bat. It 
was a gleam merely, faint, elusive, impossible of defini- 
tion, an intangible agitation, in the vast, dim blur of the 
darkness. 

And that was all. Until now no single real thing had 
occurred, nothing that Vanamee could reduce to terms of 
actuality, nothing he could put into words. The mani- 
festation, when not recognisable to that strange sixth 
sense of his, appealed only to the most refined, the most 
delicate perception of eye and ear. It was all ephemeral, 
filmy, dreamy, the mystic forming of the Vision — the 


388 The Octopus 

invisible developing a concrete nucleus, the starlight 
coagulating, the radiance of the flowers thickening to 
something actual ; perfume, the most delicious fragrance, 
becoming a tangible presence. 

But into that garden the serpent intruded. Though 
cradled in the slow rhythm of the dream, lulled by this 
beauty of a summer's night, heavy with the scent of flow- 
ers, the silence broken only by a rippling fountain, the 
darkness illuminated by a world of radiant blossoms, 
Vanamee could not forget the tragedy of the Other ; that 
terror of many years ago, — that prowler of the night, 
that strange, fearful figure with the unseen face, swoop- 
ing in there from out the darkness, gone in an instant, 
yet leaving behind the trail and trace of death and of 
pollution. 

Never had Vanamee seen this more clearly than when 
leaving Presley on the stock range of Los Muertos, he 
had come across to the Mission garden by way of the 
Quien Sabe ranch. 

It was the same night in which Annixter out-watched 
the stars, coming, at last, to himself. 

As the hours passed, the two men, far apart, ignoring 
each other, waited for the Manifestation, — Annixter on 
the ranch, Vanamee in the garden. 

Prone upon his face, under the pear trees, his forehead 
buried in the hollow of his arm, Vanamee lay motionless. 
For the last time, raising his head, he sent his voiceless 
cry out into the night across the multi-coloured levels of 
the little valley, calling upon the miracle, summoning the 
darkness to give Angele back to him, resigning himself 
to the hallucination. He bowed his head upon his arm 
again and waited. The minutes passed. The fountain 
dripped steadily. Over the hills a haze of saffron light 
foretold the rising of the full moon. Nothing stirred 
The silence was profound. 


A Story of California 389 

Then, abruptly, Vanamee’s right hand shut tight upon 
his wrist. There — there it was. It began again, his 
invocation was answered. Far off there, the ripple 
formed again upon the still, black pool of the night. No 
sound, no sight ; vibration merely, appreciable by some 
sublimated faculty of the mind as yet unnamed. Rigid, 
his nerves taut, motionless, prone on the ground, he 
waited. 

It advanced with infinite slowness. Now it passed 
through the beds of violets, now through the mignonette. 
A moment later, and he knew it stood among the white 
iris. Then it left those behind. It was in the splendour 
of the red roses and carnations. It passed like a moving 
star into the superb abundance, the imperial opulence of 
the royal lilies. It was advancing slowly, but there was 
no pause. He held his breath, not daring to raise his 
head. It passed beyond the limits of the Seed ranch, and 
entered the shade at the foot of the hill below him. 
Would it come farther than this? Here it had always 
stopped hitherto, stopped for a moment, and then, in 
spite of his efforts, had slipped from his grasp and faded 
back into the night. But now he wondered if he had been 
willing to put forth his utmost strength, after all. Had 
there not always been an element of dread in the thought 
of beholding the mystery face to face ? Had he not even 
allowed the Vision to dissolve, the Answer to recede into 
the obscurity whence it came ? 

But never a night had been so beautiful as this. It 
was the full period of the spring. The air was a verita- 
ble caress. The infinite repose of the little garden, 
sleeping under the night, was delicious beyond expres- 
sion. It was a tiny corner of the world, shut off, discreet, 
distilling romance, a garden of dreams, of enchantments. 

Below, in the little valley, the resplendent colourations 
of the million flowers, roses, lilies, hyacinths, carnations, 


390 


The Octopus 

violets, glowed like incandescence in the golden light of 
the rising moon. The air was thick with the perfume, 
heavy with it, clogged with it. The sweetness filled the 
very mouth. The throat choked with it. Overhead 
wheeled the illimitable procession of the constellations. 
Underfoot, the earth was asleep. The very flowers were 
dreaming. A cathedral hush overlay all the land, and a 
sense of benediction brooded low, — a divine kindliness 
manifesting itself in beauty, in peace, in absolute repose. 

It was a time for visions. It was the hour when 
dreams come true, and lying deep in the grasses beneath 
the pear trees, Vanamee, dizzied with mysticism, reach- 
ing up and out toward the supernatural, felt, as it were, 
his mind begin to rise upward from out his body. He 
passed into a state of being the like of which he had not 
known before. He felt that his imagination was reshap- 
ing itself, preparing to receive an impression never ex- 
perienced until now. His body felt light to him, then it 
dwindled, vanished. He saw with new eyes, heard with 
new ears, felt with a new heart. 

“ Come to me,’’ he murmured. 

Then slowly he felt the advance of the Vision. It was 
approaching. Every instant it drew gradually nearer. 
At last, he was to see. It had left the shadow at the 
base of the hill ; it was on the hill itself. Slowly, stead- 
ily, it ascended the slope; just below him there, he heard 
a faint stirring. The grasses rustled under the touch of 
a foot. The leaves of the bushes murmured, as a hand 
brushed against them; a slender twig creaked. The 
sounds of approach were more distinct. They came 
nearer. They reached the top of the hill. They were 
within whispering distance. 

Vanamee, trembling, kept his head buried in his arm. 
The sounds, at length, paused definitely. The Vision 
could come no nearer. He raised his head and looked 


39 * 


A Story of California 

C 

The moon had risen. Its great shield of gold stood 
over the eastern horizon. Within six feet of Vanamee, 
clear and distinct, against the disk of the moon, stood the 
figure of a young girl. She was dressed in a gown of 
scarlet silk, with flowing sleeves, such as Japanese wear, 
embroidered with flowers and figures of birds worked in 
gold threads. On cither side of her face, making three- 
cornered her round, white forehead, hung the soft masses 
of her hair of gold. Her hands hung limply at her sides. 
But from between her parted lips — lips of almost an 
Egyptian fulness — her breath came slow and regular, 
and her eyes, heavy lidded, slanting upwards toward the 
temples, perplexing, oriental, were closed. She was 
asleep. 

From out this life of flowers, this world of colour, this 
atmosphere oppressive with perfume, this darkness 
clogged and cloyed, and thickened with sweet odours, she 
came to him. She came to him from out of the flowers, 
the smell of the roses in her hair of gold, the aroma and 
the imperial red of the carnations in her lips, the white- 
ness of the lilies, the perfume of the lilies, and the lilies’ 
slender, balancing grace in her neck. Her hands disen- 
gaged the scent of the heliotrope. The folds of her scar- 
let gown gave off the enervating smell of poppies. Her 
feet were redolent of hyacinth. She stood before him, a 
Vision realised — a dream come true. She emerged frorr 
out the invisible. He beheld her, a figure of gold anc 
pale vermilion, redolent of perfume, poised motionless 
in the faint saffron sheen of the new-risen moon. She, a 
creation of sleep, was herself asleep. She, a dream, was 
herself dreaming. 

Called forth from out the darkness, from the grip oi 
the earth, the embrace of the grave, from out the memor}' 
of corruption, she rose into light and life, divinely pure. 
Across that white forehead was no smudge, no trace of 


392 


The Octopus 


an earthly pollution — no mark of a terrestrial dishonour. 
He saw in her the same beauty of untainted innocence 
he had known in his youth. Years had made no differ- 
ence with her. She was still young. It was the old purity 
that returned, the deathless beauty, the ever-renascent 
life, the eternal consecrated and immortal youth. For a 
few seconds, she stood there before him, and he, upon 
the ground at her feet, looked up at her, spellbound. 
Then, slowly she withdrew. Still asleep, her eyelids 
closed, she turned from him, descending the slope. She 
was gone. 

Vanamee started up, coming, as it were, to himself, 
looking wildly about him. Sarria was there. 

** I saw her,” said the priest. ‘‘ It was Angele, the 
little girl, your Angele’s daughter. She is like her 
mother.” 

But Vanamee scarcely heard. He walked as if in a 
trance, pushing by Sarria, going forth from the garden. 
Angele or Angele’s daughter, it was all one with him. 
It was She. Death was overcome. The grave van- 
quished. Life, ever-renewed, alone existed. Time was 
naught; change was naught; all things were immortal 
but evil ; all things eternal but grief. 

Suddenly, the dawn came; the east burned roseate to- 
ward the zenith. Vanamee walked on, he knew not 
where. The dawn grew brighter. At length, he paused 
upon the crest of a hill overlooking the ranchos, and cast 
his eye below him to the southward. Then, suddenly 
flinging up his arms, he uttered a great cry. 

There it was. The Wheat! The Wheat! In the 
night it had come up. It was there, everywhere, from 
margin to margin of the horizon. The earth, long empty, 
teemed with green life. Once more the pendulum of the 
seasons swung in its mighty arc, from death back to life. 
Life out of death, eternity rising from out dissolution. 


393 


A Story of California 

There was the lesson. Angele was not the symbol, but 
the proof of immortality. The seed dying, rotting and 
corrupting in the earth; rising again in life unconquer- 
able, and in immaculate purity, — Angele dying as she 
gave birth to her little daughter, life springing from her 
death, — the pure, unconquerable, coming forth from the 
denied. Why had he not had the knowledge of God? 
Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened ex- 
cept it die. So the seed had died. So died Angele. And 
that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that 
shall be, but bare grain. It may chance of wheat, or of 
some other grain. The wheat called forth from out the 
darkness, from out the grip of the earth, of the grave, 
from out corruption, rose triumphant into light and life. 
So Angele, so life, so also the resurrection of the dead. 
It is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. 
It is sown in dishonour. It is raised in glory. It is sown 
in weakness. It is raised in power. Death was swal- 
lowed up in Victory. 

The sun rose. The night was over. The glory of the 
terrestrial was one, and the glory of the celestial was an- 
other. Then, as the glory of sun banished the lesser 
glory of moon and stars, Vanamee, from his mountain 
top, beholding the eternal green life of the growing 
Wheat, bursting its bonds, and in his heart exulting in 
his triumph over the grave, flung out his arms with a 
mighty shout: 

Oh, Death, where is thy sting? Oh, Grave, where i> 
thy victory?” 


IV 


Presley’s Socialistic poem, ** The Toilers,” had an enor- 
mous success. The editor of the Sunday supplement of 
the San Francisco paper to which it was sent, printed it 
in Gothic type, with a scare-head title so decorative as to 
be almost illegible, and furthermore caused the poem to 
be illustrated by one of the paper’s staff artists in a most 
impressive fashion. The whole affair occupied an entire 
page. Thus advertised, the poem attracted attention. It 
was promptly copied in New York, Boston, and Chicago 
papers. It was discussed, attacked, defended, eulogised, 
ridiculed. It was praised with the most fulsome adula- 
tion; assailed with the most violent condemnation. Edi- 
torials were written upon it. Special articles, in literary 
pamphlets, dissected its rhetoric and prosody. The 
phrases were quoted, — were used as texts for revolution- 
ary sermons, reactionary speeches. It was parodied ; it 
was distorted so as to read as an advertisement for pat- 
ented cereals and infants’ foods. Finally, the editor of 
an enterprising monthly magazine reprinted the poem, 
supplementing it by a photograph and biography of Pres- 
ley himself. 

Presley was stunned, bewildered. He began to wonder 
at himself. Was he actually the greatest American poet 
since Bryant ” ? He had had no thought of fame while 
composing “ The Toilers.” He had only been moved to 
his heart’s foundations, — thoroughly in earnest, seeing 
clearly, — and had addressed himself to the poem’s com- 
position in a happy moment when words came easily to 


395 


A Story of California 

him, and the elaboration of fine sentences was not diffi- 
cult. Was it thus fame was achieved ? For a while he was 
tempted to cross the continent and go to New York and 
there come unto his own, enjoying the triumph that 
awaited him. But soon he denied himself this cheap re- 
ward. Now he was too much in earnest. He wanted 
to help his People, the community in which he lived — 
the little world of the San Joaquin, at grapples with the 
Railroad. The struggle had found its poet. He told 
himself that his place was here. Only the words of the 
manager of a lecture bureau troubled him for a moment. 
To range the entire nation, telling all his countrymen of 
the drama that was working itself out on this fringe of 
the continent, this ignored and distant Pacific Coast, rous- 
ing their interest and stirring them up to action — ap- 
pealed to him. It might do great good. To devote him- 
self to “ the Cause,’' accepting no penny of remuneration ; 
to give his life to loosing the grip of the iron-hearted 
monster of steel and steam would be beyond question 
heroic. Other States than California had their griev- 
ances. All over the country the family of cyclops was 
growing. He would declare himself the champion of the 
People in their opposition to the Trust. He would be 
an apostle, a prophet, a martyr of Freedom. 

But Presley was essentially a dreamer, not a man of 
aflFairs. He hesitated to act at this precise psychological 
moment, striking while the iron was yet hot, and while he 
hesitated, other affairs near at hand began to absorb his 
attention. 

One night, about an hour after he had gone to bed, he 
was awakened by the sound of voices on the porch of the 
ranch house, and, descending, found Mrs. Dyke there 
with Sidney. The ex-engineer’s mother was talking to 
Magnus and Harran, and crying as she talked. It 
seemed that Dyke was missing. He had gone into town 


The Octopus 


396 

early that afternoon with the wagon and team, and was 
to have been home for supper. By now it was ten o'clock 
and there was no news of him. Mrs. Dyke told how she 
first had gone to QuienSabe, intending to telephone from 
there to Bonneville, but Annixter was in San Francisco, 
and in his absence the house was locked up, and the over- 
seer, who had a duplicate key, was himself in Bonneville. 
She had telegraphed three times from Guadalajara to 
Bonneville for news of her son, but without result. 
Then, at last, tortured with anxiety, she had gone to 
Hooven’s, taking Sidney with her, and had prevailed 
upon Bismarck " to hitch up and drive her across Los 
Muertos to the Governor’s, to beg him to telephone into 
Bonneville, to know what had become of Dyke. 

While Harran rang up Central in town, Mrs. Dyke 
told Presley and Magnus of the lamentable change in 
Dyke. 

“ They have broken my son’s spirit, Mr. Derrick,” she 
said. “ If you were only there to see. Hour after hour, 
he sits on the porch with his hands lying open in his lap, 
looking at them without a word. He won’t look me in 
the face any more, and he don’t sleep. Night after night, 
he has walked the floor until morning. And he will go 
on that way for days together, very silent, without a 
word, and sitting still in his chair, and then, all of a sud- 
den, he will break out — oh, Mr. Derrick, it is terrible — 
into an awful rage, cursing, swearing, grinding his teeth, 
his hands clenched over his head, stamping so that the 
house shakes, and saying that if S. Behrman don’t give 
him back his money, he will kill him with his two hands. 
But that isn’t the worst, Mr. Derrick. He goes to Mr. 
Caraher’s saloon now, and stays there for hours, and 
listens to Mr. Caraher. There is something on my son’s 
mind ; I know there is — something that he and Mr. Cara- 
her have talked over together, and I can’t find out what 


397 


A Story of California 

it is. Mr. Caraher is a bad man, and my son has fallen 
under his influence.” The tears filled her eyes. Bravely, 
she turned to hide them, turning away to take Sidney in 
her arms, putting her head upon the little girl’s shoulder. 

— I haven’t broken down before, Mr. Derrick,” she 
said, “but after we have been so happy in our little house, 
just us three — and the future seemed so bright — oh, God 
will punish the gentlemen who own the railroad for be- 
ing so hard and crtiel.” 

Harran came out on the porch, from the telephone, 
and she interrupted herself, fixing her eyes eagerly upon 
him. 

“ I think it is all right, Mrs. Dyke,” he said, reassur- 
ingly. “We know where he is, I believe. You and the 
little tad stay here, and Hooven and I will go after him.” 

About two hours later, Harran brought Dyke back to 
Los Muertos in Hooven’s wagon. He had found him at 
Caraher’s saloon, very drunk. 

There was nothing maudlin about Dyke’s drunkenness. 
In him the alcohol merely roused the spirit of evil, venge- 
ful, reckless. 

As the wagon passed out from under the eucalyptus 
trees about the ranch house, taking Mrs. Dyke, Sidney, 
and the one-time engineer back to the hop ranch, Presley 
leaning from his window heard the latter remark : 

“ Caraher is right. There is only one thing they listen 
to, and that’s dynamite.” 

The following day Presley drove Magnus over to 
Guadalajara to take the train for San Francisco. But after 
he had said good-bye to the Governor, he was moved 
to go on to the hop ranch to see the condition of affairs 
in that quarter. He returned to Los Muertos over- 
whelmed with sadness and trembling with anger. The 
hop ranch that he had last seen in the full tide of pros- 
perity was almost a ruin. Work had evidently been 


398 


The Octopus 


abandoned long since. Weeds were already choking the 
vines. Everywhere the poles sagged and drooped. 
Many had even fallen, dragging the vines with them, 
spreading them over the ground in an inextricable tangle 
of dead leaves, decaying tendrils, and snarled string. 
The fence was broken; the unfinished storehouse, which 
never was to see completion, was a lamentable spectacle 
of gaping doors and windows — a melancholy skeleton. 
Last of all, Presley had caught a glimpse of Dyke him- 
self, seated in his rocking chair on the porch, his beard 
and hair unkempt, motionless, looking with vague eyes 
upon his hands that lay palm upwards and idle in his lap. 

Magnus on his way to San Francisco was joined at 
Bonneville by Osterman. Upon seating himself in front 
of the master of Los Muertos in the smoking-car of the 
train, this latter, pushing back his hat and smoothing his 
bald head, observed: 

** Governor, you look all frazeled out. Anything 
wrong these days ? ” 

The other answered in the negative, but, for all that, 
Osterman was right. The Governor had aged suddenly. 
His former erectness was gone, the broad shoulders 
stooped a little, the strong lines of his thin-lipped mouth 
were relaxed, and his hand, as it clasped over the yel- 
lowed ivory knob of his cane, had an unwonted tremu- 
lousness not hitherto noticeable. But the change in 
Magnus was more than physical. At last, in the full tide 
of power. President of the League, known and talked of 
in every county of the State, leader in a great struggle, 
consulted, deferred to as the ** Prominent Man,” at length 
attaining that position, so long and vainly sought for, he 
yet found no pleasure in his triumph, and little but bit- 
terness in life. His success had come by devious meth- 
ods, had been reached by obscure means. 

He was a briber. He could never forget that. To 


399 


A Story of California 

further his ends, disinterested, public-spirited, even phil- 
anthropic as those were, he had connived with knavery, 
he, the politician of the old school, of such rigorous in- 
tegrity, who had abandoned a ^'career rather than com- 
promise with honesty. At this eleventh hour, involved 
and entrapped in the fine-spun web of a new order of 
things, bewildered by Osterman's dexterity, by his volu- 
bility and glibness, goaded and harassed beyond the point 
of reason by the aggression of the Trust he fought, he 
had at last failed. He had fallen ; he had given a bribe. 
He had thought that, after all, this would make but little 
difference with him. The affair was known only to 
Osterman, Broderson, and Annixter; they would not 
judge him, being themselves involved. He could still 
preserve a bold front ; could still hold his head high. As 
time went on the affair would lose its point. 

But this was not so. Some subtle element of his char- 
acter had forsaken him. He felt it. He knew it. Some 
certain stiffness that had given him all his rigidity, that 
had lent force to his authority, weight to his dominance, 
temper to his fine, inflexible hardness, was diminishing 
day by day. In the decisions which he, as Presi- 
dent of the League, was called upon to make so 
often, he now hesitated. He could no longer be arro- 
gant, masterful, acting upon his own judgment, inde- 
pendent of opinion. He began to consult his lieutenants, 
asking their advice, distrusting his own opinions. He 
made mistakes, blunders, and when those were brought 
to his notice, took refuge in bluster. He knew it to be 
bluster — knew that sooner or later his subordinates would 
recognise it as such. How long could he maintain his 
position ? So only he could keep his grip upon the lever 
of control till the battle was over, all would be well. 
If not, he would fall, and, once fallen, he knew that now, 
briber that he was, he would never rise again. 


400 


The Octopus 


He was on his way at this moment to the city to con- 
sult with Lyman as to a certain issue of the contest be- 
tween the Railroad and the ranchers, which, of late, had 
been brought to his notice. 

When appeal had been taken to the Supreme Court by 
the League’s Executive Committee, certain test cases had 
been chosen, which should represent all the lands in ques- 
tion. Neither Magnus nor Annixter had so appealed, 
believing, of course, that their cases were covered by the 
test cases on trial at Washington. Magnus had here 
blundered again, and the League’s agents in San Fran- 
cisco had written to warn him that the Railroad might be 
able to take advantage of a technicality, and by pretend- 
ing that neither Quien Sabe nor Los Muertos were in- 
cluded in the appeal, attempt to put its dummy buyers 
in possession of the two ranches before the Supreme 
Court handed down its decision. The ninety days al- 
lowed for taking this appeal were nearly at an end and 
after then the Railroad could act. Osterman and Magnus 
at once decided to go up to the city, there joining An- 
nixter (who had been absent from Quien Sabe for the 
last ten days), and talk the matter over with Lyman. 
Lyman, because of his position as Commissioner, might 
be cognisant of the Railroad’s plans, and, at the same 
time, could give sound legal advice as to what was to be 
done should the new rumour prove true. 

** Say,” remarked Osterman, as the train pulled out of 
the Bonneville station, and the two men settled them- 
selves for the long journey, ** say Governor, what’s all 
up with Buck Annixter these days? He’s got a bean 
about something, sure.” 

I had not noticed,” answered Magnus. ** Mr. Ann- 
ixter has been away some time lately. I cannot imagine 
what should keep him so long in San Francisco.” 

‘'That’s it,” said Osterman, winking. “Have three 


401 


A Story of California 

guesses. Guess right and you get a cigar. I guess 
g-i-r-1 spells Hilma Tree. And a little while ago she quit 
Quien Sabe and hiked out to ’Frisco. So did Buck. Do 
I draw the cigar? It’s up to you.” 

“ I have noticed her,” observed Magnus. “ A fine 
figure of a woman. She would make some man a good 
wife.” 

Hoh ! Wife ! Buck Annixter marry ! Not much. 
He’s gone a-girling at last, old Buck ! It’s as funny as 
twins. Have to josh him about it when I see him, sure.” 

But when Osterman and Magnus at last fell in with 
Annixter in the vestibule of the Lick House, on Mont- 
gomery Street, nothing could be got out of him. He was 
in an execrable humour. When Magnus had broached 
the subject of business, he had declared that all business 
could go to pot, and when Osterman, his tongue in his 
cheek, had permitted himself a most distant allusion to a 
feemale girl, Annixter had cursed him for a busy-face ” 
so vociferously and tersely, that even Osterman was 
cowed. 

“ Well,” insinuated Osterman, what are you dallying 
’round ’Frisco so much for?” 

“ Cat fur, to make kitten-breeches,” retorted Annixter 
with oracular vagueness. 

Two weeks before this time, Annixter had come up to 
the city and had gone at once to a certain hotel on Bush 
Street, behind the First National Bank, that he knew was 
kept by a family connection of the Trees. In his con- 
jecture that Hilma and her parents would stop here, he 
was right. Their names were on the register. Ignoring 
custom, Annixter marched straight up to their rooms, 
and before he was well aware of it, was eating crow ” 
before old man Tree. 

Hilma and her mother were out at the time. Later on, 
Mrs. Tree returned alone, leaving Hilma to spend the 


402 


The Octopus 


day with one of her cousins who lived far out on Stanyan 
Street in a little house facing the park. 

Between Annixter and Hilma’s parents, a reconcilia- 
tion had been effected, Annixter convincing them both of 
his sincerity in wishing to make Hilma his wife. Hilma, 
however, refused to see him. As soon as she knew he 
had followed her to San Francisco she had been unwilling 
to return to the hotel and had arranged with her cousin 
to spend an indefinite time at her house. 

She was wretchedly unhappy during all this time; 
would not set foot out of doors, and cried herself to sleep 
night after night. She detested the city. Already she 
was miserably homesick for the ranch. She remembered 
the days she had spent in the little dairy-house, happy 
in her work, making butter and cheese; skimming the 
great pans of milk, scouring the copper vessels and vats, 
plunging her arms, elbow deep, into the white curds; 
coming and going in that atmosphere of freshness, clean- 
liness, and sunlight, gay, singing, supremely happy just 
because the sun shone. She remembered her long walks 
toward the Mission late in the afternoons, her excursions 
for cresses underneath the Long Trestle, the crowing of 
the cocks, the distant whistle of the passing trains, the 
faint sounding of the Angelus. She recalled with in- 
finite longing the solitary expanse of the ranches, the 
level reaches between the horizons, full of light and 
silence ; the heat at noon, the cloudless iridescence of the 
sunrise and sunset. She had been so happy in that life ! 
Now, all those days were passed. This crude, raw city, 
with its crowding houses all of wood and tin, its blotting 
fogs, its uproarious trade winds, disturbed and saddened 
her. There was no outlook for the future. 

At length, one day, about a week after Annixter's 
arrival in the city, she was prevailed upon to go for a 
walk in the park. She went alone, putting on for the first 


403 


A Story Of California 

time the little hat of black straw with its puff of white 
silk her mother had bought for her, a pink shirtwaist, 
her belt of imitation alligator skin, her new skirt of 
brown cloth, and her low shoes, set off with their little 
steel buckles. 

She found a tiny summer house, built in Japanese fash- 
ion, around a diminutive pond, and sat there for a while, 
her hands folded in her lap, amused with watching the 
goldfish, wishing — she knew not what. 

Without any warning, Annixter sat down beside her. 
She was too frightened to move. She looked at him with 
wide eyes that began to fill with tears. 

“ Oh,” she said, at last, “ oh — I didn’t know.” 

“ Well,” exclaimed Annixter, here you are at last. 
I’ve been watching that blamed house till I was afraid 
the policeman would move me on. By the Lord,” he 
suddenly cried, '' you’re pale. You — ^you, Hilma, do you 
feel well?” 

“Yes — I am well,” she faltered. 

“ No, you’re not,” he declared. “ I know better. 
You are coming back to Quien Sabe with me. This place 
don’t agree with you. Hilma, what’s all the matter? 
Why haven’t you let me see you all this time? Do you 
know — how things are with me? Your mother told you, 
didn’t she? Do you know how sorry I am? Do you 
know that I see now that I made the mistake of my life 
there, that time, under the Long Trestle? I found it out 
the night after you went away. I sat all night on a stone 
out on the ranch somewhere and I don’t know exactly 
what happened, but I’ve been a different man since then. 
I see things all different now. Why, I’ve only begun to 
live since then. I know what love means now, and in- 
stead of being ashamed of it. I’m proud of it. If I never 
was to see you again I would be glad I’d lived through 
that night, just the same. I just woke up that night 


404 


The Octopus 

rd been absolutely and completely selfish up to the 
moment I realised I really loved you, and now, whether 
you’ll let me marry you or not, I mean to live — I don’t 
know, in a different way. I’ve got to live different. I — 
well — oh, I can’t make you understand, but just loving* 
you has changed my life all around. It’s made it easier 
to do the straight, clean thing. I want to do it, it’s fun 
doing it. Remember, once I said I was proud of being 
a hard man, a driver, of being glad that people hated me 
and were afraid of me? Well, since I’ve loved you I’m 
ashamed of it all. I don’t want to be hard any more, and 
nobody is going to hate me if I can help it. I’m happy 
and I want other people so. I love you,” he suddenly 
exclaimed ; I love you, and if you will forgive me, and 
if you will come down to such a beast as I am, I want 
to be to you the best a man can be to a woman, Hilma. 
Do you understand, little girl? I want to be your hus- 
band.” 

Hilma looked at the goldfishes through her tears. 

**Have you got anything to say to me, Hilma?” he 
asked, after a while. 

‘‘ I don’t know what you want me to say,” she mur- 
mured. 

Yes, you do,” he insisted. ** I’ve followed you ’way 
up here to hear it. I’ve waited around in these beastly, 
' draughty picnic grounds for over a week to hear it. You 
know what I want to hear, Hilma.” 

**Well — I forgive you,” she hazarded. 

‘‘That will do for a starter,” he answered. “But 
that’s not if.” 

“Then, I don’t know what.” 

“ Shall I say it for you ? ” 

She hesitated a long minute, then: 

“You mightn’t say it right,” she replied. 

“Trust me for that. Shall I say it for you, Hilma?’' 


405 


A Story of California 

" I don't know what you’ll say,” 

"I’ll say what you are thinking of. Shall I say it?” 

There was a very long pause. A goldfish rose to the 
surface of the little pond, with a sharp, rippling sound. 
The fog drifted overhead. There was nobody about. 

" No,” said Hilma, at length. ** I — I — I can say it for 
myself. I — ” All at once she turned to him and put 
her arms around his neck. ** Oh, do you love me ? ” she 
cried. “ Is it really true ? Do you mean every word of 
it? And you are sorry and you will be good to me if 
I will be your wife? You will be my dear, dear hus- 
band?” 

The tears sprang to Annixter’s eyes. He took her in 
his arms and held her there for a moment. Never in his 
life had he felt so unworthy, so undeserving of this clean, 
pure girl who forgave him and trusted his spoken word 
and believed him to be the good man he could only wish 
t'' be. She was so far above him, so exalted, so noble 
that he should have bowed his forehead to her feet, and 
instead, she took him in her arms, believing him to be 
good, to be her equal. He could think of no words to 
say. The tears overflowed his eyes and ran down upon 
his cheeks. She drew away from him and held him a 
second at arm’s length, looking at him, and he saw that 
she, too, had been crying. 

" I think,” he said, " we are a couple of softies.” 

" No, no,” she insisted. " I want to cry and want you 
to cry, too. Oh, dear, I haven’t a handkerchief.” 

"Here, take mine.” 

They wiped each other’s eyes like two children and 
for a long time sat in the deserted little Japanese pleas- 
ure house, their arms about each other, talking, talking, 
talking. 

On the following Saturday they were married in an 
uptown Presbyterian church, and spent the week of their 


4o6 


The Octopus 

honeymoon at a small, family hotel on Sutter Street. As 
a matter of course, they saw the sights of the city to- 
gether. They made the inevitable bridal trip to the Cliff 
House and spent an afternoon in the grewsome and 
made-to-order beauties of Sutro’s Gardens; they went 
through Chinatown, the Palace Hotel, the park museum — 
where Hilma resolutely refused to believe in the Egyp- 
tian mummy — and they drove out in a hired hack to the 
Presidio and the Golden Gate. 

On the sixth day of their excursions, Hilma abruptly 
declared they had had enough of playing out,’’ and must 
be serious and get to work. 

This work was nothing less than the buying of the 
furniture and appointments for the rejuvenated ranch 
house at Quien Sabe, where they were to live. Annixter 
had telegraphed to his overseer to have the building re- 
painted, replastered, and reshingled and to empty the 
rooms of everything but the telephone and safe. He also 
sent instructions to have the dimensions of each room 
noted down and the result forwarded to him. It was the 
arrival of these memoranda that had roused Hilma to 
action. 

Then ensued a most delicious week. Armed with 
formidable lists, written by Annixter on hotel envelopes, 
they two descended upon the department stores of the 
city, the carpet stores, the furniture stores. Right and 
left they bought and bargained, sending each consign- 
ment as soon as purchased to Quien Sabe. Nearly an 
entire car load of carpets, curtains, kitchen furniture, 
pictures, fixtures, lamps, straw matting, chairs, and the 
like were sent down to the ranch, Annixter making a 
point that their new home should be entirely equipped by 
San Francisco dealers. 

The furnishings of the bedroom and sitting-room were 
left to the very last. For the former, Hilma bought a 


407 


A Story of California 

“set” of pure white enamel, three chairs, a washstand 
and bureau, a marvellous bargain of thirty dollars, dis- 
covered by wonderful accident at a Friday Sale.” The 
bed was a piece by itself, bought elsewhere, but none the 
less a wonder. It was of brass, very brave and gay, and 
actually boasted a canopy! They bought it complete, 
just as it stood in the window of the department store, 
and Hilnia was in an ecstasy over its crisp, clean, muslin 
curtains, spread, and shams. Never was there such a bed, 
the luxury of a princess, such a bed as she had dreamed 
about her whole life. 

Next the appointments of the sitting-room occupied 
her — since Annixtcr, himself, bewildered by this aston- 
ishing display, unable to offer a single suggestion him- 
self, merely approved of all she bought. In the sitting- 
room was to be a beautiful blue and white paper, cool 
straw matting, set off with white wool rugs, a stand of 
flowers in the window, a globe of goldfish, rocking chairs, 
a sewing machine, and a great, round centre table of 
yellow oak whereon should stand a lamp covered with a 
deep shade of crinkly red tissue paper. On the walls 
were to hang several pictures — ^lovely affairs, photo- 
graphs from life, all properly tinted — of choir boys in 
robes, with beautiful eyes; pensive young girls in pink 
gowns, with flowing yellow hair, drooping over golden 
harps ; a coloured reproduction of Rouget de Lisle, 
Singing the Marseillaise,” and two ** pieces ” of wood 
carving, representing a quail and a wild duck, hung by 
one leg in the midst of game bags and powder horns,— 
quite masterpieces, both. 

At last everything had been bought, all arrangements 
made, Hilma's trunks packed with her new dresses, and 
the tickets to Bonneville bought. 

** We'll go by the Overland, by Jingo,” declared Ann- 
ixter across the table to his wife, at their last meal in 


4o 8 The Octopus 

the hotel where they had been stopping; " no way trains 
or locals for us, hey ? 

“ But we reach Bonneville at such an hour,” protested 
Hilma. Five in the morning I ” 

** Never mind,” he declared, ‘‘ we’ll go home in Pull- 
man's, Hilma. Fm not going to have any of those slobs 
in Bonneville say I didn’t know how to do the thing in 
style, and we’ll have Vacca meet us with the team. No, 
sir, it is Pullman’s or nothing. When it comes to buy- 
ing furniture, I don’t shine, perhaps, but I know what’s 
due my wife.” 

He was obdurate, and late one afternoon the couple 
boarded the Transcontinental (the crack Overland Flyer 
of the Pacific and Southwestern) at the Oakland mole. 
Only Hilma’s parents were there to say good-bye. Ann- 
ixter knew that Magnus and Osterman were in the city, 
but he had laid his plans to elude them. Magnus, he 
could trust to be dignified, but that goat Osterman, one 
could never tell what he would do next. He did not 
propose to start his journey home in a shower of rice. 

Annixter marched down the line of cars, his hands 
encumbered with wicker telescope baskets, satchels, and 
valises, his tickets in his mouth, his hat on wrong side 
foremost, Hilma and her parents hurrying on behind him, 
trying to keep up. Annixter was in a turmoil of nerves 
lest something should go wrong; catching a train was 
always for him a little crisis. He rushed ahead so furi- 
ously that when he had found his Pullman he had lost 
his party. He set down his valises to mark the place 
and charged back along the platform, waving his arms. 

“Come on,” he cried, when, at length, he espied the 
others. “We’ve no more time.” 

He shouldered and urged them forward to where he 
had set his valises, only to find one of them gone. In- 
stantly he raised an outcry. Aha, a fine way to treat 


409 


A Story of California 

passengers ! There was P. and S. W. management for 
you. He would, by the Lord, he would — ^but the porter 
appeared in the vestibule of the car to placate him. He 
had already taken his valises inside. 

Annixter would not permit Hilma’s parents to board 
the car, declaring that the train might pull out any mo- 
ment. So he and his wife, following the porter down 
the narrow passage by the stateroom, took their places 
and, raising the window, leaned out to say good-bye to 
Mr. and Mrs. Tree. These latter would not return to 
Quien Sabe. Old man Tree had found a business chance 
awaiting him in the matter of supplying his relative’s 
hotel with dairy products. But Bonneville was not too 
far from San Francisco; the separation was by no means 
final. 

The porters began taking up the steps that stood by 
the vestibule of each sleeping-car. 

“Well, have a good time, daughter,” observed her 
father ; “ and come up to see us whenever you can.” 

From beyond the enclosure of the depot’s reverberating 
roof came the measured clang of a bell. 

“ I guess we’re off,” cried Annixter. “ Good-bye, Mrs. 
Tree.” 

“ Remember your promise, Hilma,” her mother has- 
tened to exclaim, “ to write every Sunday afternoon.” 

There came a prolonged creaking and groan of strain- 
ing wood and iron work, all along the length of the 
train. They all began to cry their good-byes at once. 
The train stirred, moved forward, and gathering slow 
headway, rolled slowly out into the sunlight. Hilma 
leaned out of the window and as long as she could keep 
her mother in sight waved her handkerchief. Then at 
length she sat back in her seat and looked at her hus- 
band. 

“ Well,” she said. 


410 The Octopus 

** Well,” echoed Annixter, “ happy? ” for the tears rose 
ki her eyes. 

She nodded energetically, smiling at him bravely. 

“You look a little pale,” he declared, frowning un* 
easily ; “ feel well ? ” 

“ Pretty well.” 

Promptly he was seized with uneasiness. 

“ But not all well, hey ? Is that it ? ” 

It was true that Hilma had felt a faint tremour of sea- 
sickness on the ferry-boat coming from the city to the 
Oakland mole- No doubt a little nausea yet remained 
with her. But Annixter refused to accept this explana- 
tion. He was distressed beyond expression. 

“ Now youVe going to be sick,” he cried anxiously. 

“ No, no,” she protested, “ not a bit.” 

“ But you said you didn^t feel very well. Where is it 
you feel sick ? ” 

“ I don’t know. Pm not sick. Oh, dear me, why will 
;rou bother?” 

“ Headache ? ” 

“ Not the least.” 

“ You feel tired, then. That’s it. No wonder, the way 
Pv^ rushed you ’round to-day.” 

“Dear, I’m not tired, and I’m not sick, and Pm all 
right,** 

“ No, no ; I can tell. I think we’d best have the berth 
made up and you lie down.” 

“ That would be perfectly ridiculous.” 

“ Well, where is it you feel sick? Show me; put your 
hand on the place. Want to eat something?” 

With elaborate minuteness, he cross-questioned her, re- 
fusing to let the subject drop, protesting that she had 
dark circles under her eyes ; that she had grown thinner. 

“ Wonder if there’s a doctor on board,” he murmured, 
looking uncertainly about the car. “ Let me see your 


A Story of California 41 1 

tongue. I know — a little whiskey is what you want, that 
and some pru ' 

No, no, no," she exclaimed. I’m as well as I ever 
was in all my life. Look at me. Now, tell me, do I look 
like a sick lady? ’’ 

He scrutinized her face distressfully. 

Now, don’t I look the picture of health?’’ she chal- 
lenged. 

In a way you do,’’ he began, and then again " 

Hilma beat a tattoo with her heels upon the floor, shut- 
ting her fists, the thumbs tucked inside. She closed her 
eyes, shaking her head energetically. 

'' I won’t listen, I won’t listen, I won’t listen,’’ she 
cried. 

'' But, just the same ’’ 

Gibble — Gibble — Gibble,’’ she mocked. I won’t 
listen, I won’t listen.’’ She put a hand over his mouth. 

Look, here’s the dining-car waiter, and the first call for 
supper, and your wife is hungry.’’ 

They went forward and had supper in the diner, while 
the long train, now out upon the main line, settled itself 
to its pace, the prolonged, even gallop that it would hold 
for the better part of the week, spinning out the miles 
as a cotton spinner spins thread. 

It was already dark when Antioch was left behind. 
Abruptly the sunset appeared to wheel in the sky and 
readjusted itself to the right of the track behind Mount 
Diablo, here visible almost to its base. The train had 
turned southward. Neroly was passed, then Brentwood, 
then Byron. In the gathering dusk, mountains began to 
build themselves up on either hand, far off, blocking the 
horizon. The train shot forward, roaring. Between the 
mountains the land lay level, cut up into farms, ranches. 
These continually grew larger; growing wheat began to 
appear, billowing in the wind of the train’s passage. The 


412 


The Octopus 

mountains grew higher, the land richer, and by the time 
the moon rose, the train was well into the northernmost 
limits of the valley of the San Joaquin. 

Annixter had engaged an entire section, and after he 
and his wife went to bed had the porter close the upper 
berth. Hilma sat up in bed to say her prayers, both 
hands over her face, and then kissing Annixter good- 
night, went to sleep with the directness of a little child, 
holding his hand in both her own. 

Annixter, who never could sleep on the train, dozed 
and tossed and fretted for hours, consulting his watch 
and time-table whenever there was a stop ; twice he rose 
to get a drink of ice water, and between whiles was for- 
ever sitting up in the narrow berth, stretching himself 
and yawning, murmuring with uncertain relevance: 

‘‘Oh, Lord! Oh-h-h Lordf/* 

There were some dozen other passengers in the car — 
a lady with three children, a group of school-teachers, a 
couple of drummers, a stout gentleman with whiskers, 
and a well-dressed young man in a plaid travelling cap, 
whom Annixter had observed before supper time read- 
ing Daudet^s “ Tartarin in the French. 

But by nine o'clock, all these people were in their 
berths. Occasionally, above the rhythmic rumble of the 
wheels, Annixter could hear one of the lady's children 
fidgeting and complaining. The stout gentleman snored 
monotonously in two notes, one a rasping bass, the other 
a prolonged treble. At intervals, a brakeman or the pas- 
senger conductor pushed down the aisle, between the 
curtains, his red and white lamp over his arm. Looking 
out into the car Annixter saw in an end section where 
the berths had not been made up, the porter, in his white 
duck coat, dozing, his mouth wide open, his head on his 
shoulder. 

The hours passed. Midnight came and went. 'An* 


413 


A Story of California 

nixter, checking off the stations, noted their passage of 
Modesto, Merced, and Madeira. Then, after another 
broken nap, he lost count. He wondered where they 
were. Had they reached Fresno yet? Raising the win- 
dow curtain, he made a shade with both hands on either 
side of his face and looked out. The night was thick, 
dark, clouded over. A fine rain was falling, leaving 
horizontal streaks on the glass of the outside window. 
Only the faintest grey blur indicated the sky. Every- 
thing else was impenetrable blackness. 

“ I think sure we must have passed Fresno,” he mut- 
tered. He looked at his watch. It was about half-past 
three. If we have passed Fresno,” he said to himself, 
“ Fd better wake the little girl pretty soon. She’ll need 
about an hour to dress. Better find out for sure.” 

He drew on his trousers and shoes, got into his coat, 
and stepped out into the aisle. In the seat that had been 
occupied by the porter, the Pullman conductor, his cash 
box and car-schedules before him, was checking up his 
berths, a blue pencil behind his ear. 

“What’s the next stop. Captain?” inquired Annixter, 
coming up. “Have we reached Fresno yet?” 

“ Just passed it,” the other responded, looking at An- 
nixter over his spectacles. 

“ What’s the next stop ? ” 

“ Goshen. We will be there in about forty-five min- 
utes.” 

“Fair black night, isn’t it?” 

“Black as a pocket. Let’s see, you’re the party in 
upper and lower 9.” 

Annixter caught at the back of the nearest seat, just 
in time to prevent a fall, and the conductor’s cash box 
was shunted off the surface of the plush seat and came 
clanking to the floor. The Pintsch lights overhead vi- 
brated with blinding rapidity in the long, sliding jar that 


414 


The Octopus 

ran through the train from end to end, and the momen- 
tum of its speed suddenly decreasing, all but pitched the 
conductor from his seat. A hideous ear-splitting rasp 
made itself heard from the clamped-down Westinghouse 
gear underneath, and Annixter knew that the wheels had 
ceased to revolve and that the train was sliding forward 
upon the motionless flanges. 

** Hello, hello, he exclaimed, what's all up now ? " 
Emergency brakes," declared the conductor, catch- 
ing up his cash box and thrusting his papers and tickets 
into it. ** Nothing much ; probably a cow on the track." 

He disappeared, carrying his lantern with him. 

But the other passengers, all but the stout gentleman, 
were awake; heads were thrust from out the curtains, and 
Annixter, hurrying back to Hilma, was assailed by all 
manner of questions. 

"‘What was that?" 

“ Anything wrong ? " 

“What's up, anyways?" 

Hilma was just waking as Annixter pushed the cur- 
tain aside. 

“ Oh, I was so frightened. What's the matter, dear ? '' 
she exclaimed. 

“ I don't know," he answered. “ Only the emergency 
brakes. Just a cow on the track, I guess. Don’t get 
scared. It isn't anything." 

But with a final shriek of the Westinghouse appliance, 
the train came to a definite halt. 

At once the silence was absolute. The ears, still numb 
with the long-continued roar of wheels and clashing iron, 
at first refused to register correctly the smaller noises 
of the surroundings. Voices came from the other end 
of the car, strange and unfamiliar, as though heard at a 
great distance across the water. The stillness of the 
night outside was so profound that the rain, dripping 


A Story of California 415 

from iht car roof upon the road-bed underneath, was as 
distinct as the ticking of a clock. 

“ Well, weVe sure stopped,” observed one of the drum- 
mers. 

“ What is it ? ” asked Hilma again. Are you sure 
there’s nothing wrong? ” 

“ Sure,” said Annixter. 

Outside, underneath their window, they heard the 
sound of hurried footsteps crushing into the clinkers by 
the side of the ties. They passed on, and Annixter heard 
some one in the distance shout: 

Yes, on the other side.” 

Then the door at the end of their car opened and a 
brakeman with a red beard ran down the aisle and out 
upon the platform in front. The forward door closed. 
FA’erything was quiet again. In the stillness the fat gen- 
tleman’s snores made themselves heard once more. 

The minutes passed; nothing stirred. There was no 
sound but the dripping rain. The line of cars lay im- 
mobilised and inert under the night. One of the drum- 
mers, having stepped outside on the platform for a look 
around, returned, saying: 

There sure isn’t any station anywheres about and no 
siding. Bet you they have had an accident of some 
kind.” 

''Ask the porter.” 

"I did. He don’t know.” 

" Maybe they stopped to take on wood or water, or 
something.” 

"Well, they wouldn’t use the emergency brakes for 
that, would they? Why, this train stopped almost in 
her own length. Pretty near slung me out the berth. 
Those were the emergency brakes. I heard some one 
say so.” 

From far out towards the front of the train, near the 


4i6 


The Octopus 

locomotive, came the sharp, incisive report of a revolver ; 
then two more almost simultaneously; then, after a long* 
interval, a fourth. 

'' Say, that’s shooting. By God, boys, they’re shooting. 
Say, this is a hold-up.” 

Instantly a white-hot excitement flared from end to end 
of the car. Incredibly sinister, heard thus in the night, 
and in the rain, mysterious, fearful, those four pistol 
shots started confusion from out the sense of security 
like a frightened rabbit hunted from her burrow. Wide- 
eyed, the passengers of the car looked into each other’s 
faces. It had come to them at last, this, they had so 
often read about. Now they were to see the real thing, 
now they were to face actuality, face this danger of the 
night, leaping in from out the blackness of the roadside, 
masked, armed, ready to kill. They were facing it now. 
They were held up. 

Hilma said nothing, only catching Annixter’s hand, 
looking squarely into his eyes. 

Steady, little girl,” he said. They can’t hurt you. 
I won’t leave you. By the Lord,” he suddenly exclaimed, 
his excitement getting the better of him for a moment. 
“ By the Lord, it’s a hold-up.” 

The school-teachers were in the aisle of the car, in 
night gown, wrapper, and dressing sack, huddled together 
like sheep, holding on to each other, looking to the men, 
silently appealing for protection. Two of them were 
weeping, white to the lips. 

Oh, oh, oh, it’s terrible. Oh, if they only won’t hurt 
me.” 

But the lady with the children looked out from her 
berth, smiled reassuringly, and said: 

I’m not a bit frightened. They won’t do anything to 
us if we keep quiet. I’ve my watch and jewelry all ready 
for them in my little black bag, sec ? ” 


417 


A Story of California 

She exhibited it to the passengers. Her children were 
all awake. They were quiet, looking about them with 
eager faces, interested and amused at this surprise. In 
his berth, the fat gentleman with whiskers snored pro- 
foundly. 

“ Say, Fm going out there,*^ suddenly declared one of 
the drummers, flourishing a pocket revolver. 

His friend caught his arm. 

“ Don’t make a fool of yourself. Max,” he said. 

“ They won’t come near us,” observed the well-dressed 
young man ; “ they are after the Wells-Fargo box and the 
registered mail. You won’t do any good out there.” 

But the other loudly protested. No ; he was going out. 
He didn’t propose to be buncoed without a fight. He 
wasn’t any coward. 

'"Well, you don’t go, that’s all,” said his friend, an- 
grily. ** There’s women and children in this car. You 
ain’t going to draw the fire here.” 

“ Well, that’s to be thought of,” said the other, allow- 
ing himself to be pacified, but still holding his pistol. 

“ Don’t let him open that window,” cried Annixter 
sharply from his place by Hilma’s side, for the drummer 
had made as if to open the sash in one of the sections 
that had not been made up. 

Sure, that’s right,” said the others. ** Don’t open any 
windows. Keep your head in. You’ll get us all shot if 
you aren’t careful.” 

However, the drummer had got the window up and 
had leaned out before the others could interfere and 
draw him away. 

Say, by jove,” he shouted, as he turned back to the 
car, our engine’s gone. We’re standing on a curve and 
you can see the end of the train. She’s gone, I tell you. 
Well, look for yourself.” 

In spite of their precautions, one after another, his 

27 


41 8 The Octopus 

friends looked out. Sure enough, the train was without 
a locomotive. 

''TheyVe done it so we can't get away,*’ vociferated 
the drummer with the pistol. Now, by jiminy-Christ- 
mas, they’ll come through the cars and stand us up. 
They’ll be in here in a minute. Lord! What was 
thatf^^ 

From far away up the track, apparently some half- 
mile ahead of the train, came the sound of a heavy ex- 
plosion. The windows of the car vibrated with it. 

“ Shooting again.” 

That isn’t shooting,” exclaimed Annixter. “ They’ve 
pulled the express and mail car on ahead with the engine 
and now they are dynamiting her open.” 

“That must be it. Yes, sure, that’s just what they 
are doing.” 

The forward door of the car opened and closed and 
the school-teachers shrieked and cowered. The drummer 
with the revolver faced about, his eyes bulging. How- 
ever, it was only the train conductor, hatless, his lantern 
in his hand. He was soaked with rain. He appeared in 
the aisle. 

“ Is there a doctor in this car ? ” he asked. 

Promptly the passengers surrounded him, voluble with 
questions. But he was in a bad temper. 

“ I don’t know anything more than you,” he shouted 
angrily. “ It was a hold-up. I guess you know that, 
don’t you? Well, what more do you want to know? I 
ain’t got time to fool around. They cut off our express 
car and have cracked it open, and they shot one of our 
train crew, that’s all, and I want a doctor.” 

“ Did they shoot him — kill him, do you mean ? ” 

“ Is he hurt bad ? ” 

“ Did the men get away ? ” 

“ Oh, shut up, will you all ? ” exclaimed the conductor. 


A Story of California 419 

** What do I know? Is there a doctor in this car, thafs 
what I want to know ? ” 

The well-dressed young man stepped forward. 

I’m a doctor/’ he said. 

“ Well, come along then,” returned the conductor, in a 
siirly voice, and the passengers in this car,” he added, 
turning back at the door and nodding his head menac- 
ingly, “ will go back to bed and stay there. It’s all over 
and there’s nothing to see.” 

He went out, followed by the young doctor. 

Then ensued an interminable period of silence. The 
entire train seemed deserted. Helpless, bereft of its en- 
gine, a huge, decapitated monster it lay, half-way around 
a curve, rained upon, abandoned. 

There was more fear in this last condition of af- 
fairs, more terror in the idea of this prolonged line of 
sleepers, with their nickelled fittings, their plate glass, 
their upholstery, vestibules, and the like, loaded down 
with people, lost and forgotten in the night and the 
rain, than there had been when the actual danger 
threatened. 

What was to become of them now? Who was there 
to help them? Their engine was gone; they were help- 
less. What next was to happen ? 

Nobody came near the car. Even the porter had dis- 
appeared. The wait seemed endless, and the persistent 
snoring of the whiskered gentleman rasped the nerves 
like the scrape of a file. 

^^Well, how long are we going to stick here now?” 
began one of the drummers. Wonder if they hurt the 
engine with their dynamite ? ” 

Oh, I know they will come through the car and rob 
us,” wailed the school-teachers. 

The lady with the little children went back to bed, and 
Annixter, assured that the trouble was over, did likewise. 


420 The Octopus 

But nobody slept. From berth to berth came the sound 
of suppressed voices talking it all over, formulating con- 
jectures. Certain points seemed to be settled upon, no 
one knew how, as indisputable. The highwaymen had 
been four in number and had stopped the train by pull- 
ing the bell cord. A brakeman had attempted to inter- 
fere and had been shot. The robbers had been on the 
train all the way from San Francisco. The drummer 
named Max remembered to have seen four “ suspicious- 
looking characters ” in the smoking-car at Lathrop, and 
had intended to speak to the conductor about them. 
This drummer had been in a hold-up before, and told the 
story of it over and over again. 

At last, after what seemed to have been an hour’s de- 
lay, and when the dawn had already begun to show in 
the east, the locomotive backed on to the train again 
with a reverberating jar that ran from car to car. At the 
jolting, the school-teachers screamed in chorus, and the 
whiskered gentleman stopped snoring and thrust his 
head from his curtains, blinking at the Pintsch lights. It 
appeared that he was an Englishman. 

'' I say,” he asked of the drummer named Max, I 
say, my friend, what place is this ? ” 

The others roared with derision. 

'' We were held up, sir, that’s what we were. We were 
held up and you slept through it all. You missed the 
show of your life.” 

The gentleman fixed the group with a prolonged gaze. 
He said never a word, but little by little he was con- 
vinced that the drummers told the truth. All at once he 
grew wrathful, his face purpling. He withdrew his head 
angrily, buttoning his curtains together in a fury. The 
cause of his rage was inexplicable, but they could hear 
him resettling himself upon his pillows with exasperated 
movements of his head and shoulders. In a few mo- 


A Story of California 421 

ments the deep bass and shrill treble of his snoring once 
more sounded through the car. 

At last the train got under way again, with useless 
warning blasts of the engine’s whistle. In a few mo- 
ments it was tearing away through the dawn at a won- 
derful speed, rocking around curves, roaring across cul- 
verts, making up time. 

And all the rest of that strange night the passengers, 
sitting up in their unmade beds, in the swaying car, 
lighted by a strange mingling of pallid dawn and 
trembling Pintsch lights, rushing at break-neck speed 
through the misty rain, were oppressed by a vision of 
figures of terror, far behind them in the night they had 
left, masked, armed, galloping toward the mountains, 
pistol in hand, the booty bound to the saddle bow, gallop- 
ing, galloping on, sending a thrill of fear through all 
the country side. 

The young doctor returned. He sat down in the 
smoking-room, lighting a cigarette, and Annixter and 
the drummers pressed around him to know the story of 
the whole affair. 

“ The man is dead,” he declared ; “ the brakeman. He 
was shot through the lungs twice. They think the 
fellow got away with about five thousand in gold 
coin.” 

The fellow ? Wasn’t there four of them ? ” 

“ No ; only one. And say, let me tell you, he had his 
nerve with him. It seems he was on the roof of the ex- 
press car all the time, and going as fast as we were, he 
jumped from the roof of the car down on to the coal on 
the engine’s tender, and crawled over that and held up 
the men in the cab with his gun, took their guns from ’em 
and made ’em stop the train. Even ordered ’em to use 
the emergency gear, seems he knew all about it. Then he 
went back and uncoupled the express car himself 


422 


The Octopus 

While he was doing this, a brakeman — you remember 
that brakeman that came through here once or twice- 
had a red mustache/’ 

^^That chap?” 

‘‘ Sure. Well, as soon as the train stopped, this brake- 
man guessed something was wrong and ran up, saw the 
fellow cutting off the express car and took a couple of 
shots at him, and the fireman says the fellow didn’t even 
take his hand off the coupling-pin; just turned around as 
cool as how-do-you-do and nailed the brakeman right 
there. They weren’t five feet apart when they began 
shooting. The brakeman had come on him unexpected, 
had no idea he was so close.” 

“ And the express messenger, all this time ? ” 

“ Well, he did his best. Jumped out with his repeating 
shot-gun, but the fellow had him covered before he could 
turn round. Held him up and took his gun away from 
him. Say, you know I call that nerve, just the same. 
One man standing up a whole train-load, like that. 
Then, as soon as he’d cut the express car off, he made 
the engineer run her up the track about half a mile to a 
road crossing, where he had a horse tied. What do you 
think of that? Didn’t he have it all figured out close? 
And when he got there, he dynamited the safe and got 
the Wells-Fargo box. He took five thousand in gold 
coin ; the messenger says it was railroad money that the 
company were sending down to Bakersfield to pay off 
with. It was in a bag. He never touched the registered 
mail, nor a whole wad of greenbacks that were in the 
safe, but just took the coin, got on his horse, and lit out. 
The engineer says he went to the east’ard.” 

‘^He got away, did he?” 

** Yes, but they think they’ll get him. He wore a kind 
of mask, but the brakeman recognised him positively. 
We got his ante-mortem statement. The brakeman said 


A Story of California 423 

the fellow had a grudge against the road. He was a 
discharged employee, and lives near Bonneville.” 

“ Dyke, by the Lord ! ” exclaimed Annixter. 

“ That’s the name,” said the young doctor. 

When the train arrived at Bonneville, forty minutes 
behind time, it landed Annixter and Hilma in the midst 
of the very thing they most wished to avoid — an enor- 
mous crowd. The news that the Overland had been held 
up thirty miles south of Fresno, a brakeman killed and 
the safe looted, and that Dyke alone was responsible for 
the night’s work, had been wired on ahead from Fowler, 
the train conductor throwing the despatch to the station 
agent from the flying train. 

Before the train had come to a standstill under the 
arched roof of the Bonneville depot, it was all but taken 
by assault. Annixter, with Hilma on his arm, had almost 
to fight his way out of the car. The depot was black 
with people. S. Behrman was there, Delaney, Cyrus 
Ruggles, the town marshal, the mayor. Genslinger, his 
hat on the back of his head, ranged the train from cab 
to rear-lights, note-book in hand, interviewing, question- 
ing, collecting facts for his extra. As Annixter de- 
scended finally to the platform, the editor, alert as a 
black-and-tan terrier, his thin, osseous hands quivering 
with eagerness, his brown, dry face working with ex- 
citement, caught his elbow. 

Can I have your version of the affair, Mr. An- 
nixter ? ” 

Annixter turned on him abruptly. 

“ Yes ! ” he exclaimed fiercely. You and your gang 
drove Dyke from his job because he wouldn’t work for 
starvation wages. Then you raised freight rates on him 
and robbed him of all he had. You ruined him and drove 
him to fill himself up with Caraher’s whiskey. He’s 
only taken back what you plundered him of, and now 


424 The Octopus 

you’re going to hound him over the State, hunt him down 
like a wild animal, and bring him to the gallows at San 
Quentin. That’s my version of the affair. Mister Gen- 
slinger, but it’s worth your subsidy from the P. and S. W. 
to print it.” 

There was a murmur of approval from the crowd that 
stood around, and Genslinger, with an angry shrug of 
one shoulder, took himself away. 

At length, Annixter brought Hilma through the crowd 
to where young Vacca was waiting with the team. How- 
ever, they could not at once start for the ranch, Annix- 
ter wishing to ask some questions at the freight office 
about a final consignment of chairs. It was nearly eleven 
o’clock before they could start home. But to gain the 
Upper Road to Quien Sabe, it was necessary to traverse 
all of Main Street, running through the heart of Bonne- 
ville. 

The entire town seemed to be upon the sidewalks. By 
now the rain was over and the sun shining. The story of 
the hold-up — the work of a man whom every one knew 
and liked — was in every mouth. How had Dyke come to 
do it? Who would have believed it of him? Think of 
his poor mother and the little tad. Well, after all, he 
was not so much to blame; the railroad people had 
brought it on themselves. But he had shot a man to 
death. Ah, that was a serious business. Good-natured, 
big, broad-shouldered, jovial Dyke, the man they knew, 
with whom they had shaken hands only yesterday, yes, 
and drank with him. He had shot a man, killed him, 
had stood there in the dark and in the rain while they 
were asleep in their beds, and had killed a man. Now 
where was he? Instinctively eyes were turned east- 
ward, over the tops of the houses, or down vistas of side 
streets to where the foot-hills of the mountains rose dim 
md vast over the edge of the valley. He was in 


A Story of California 425 

amongst them ; somewhere, in all that pile of blue crests 
and purple canons he was hidden away. Now for 
weeks of searching, false alarms, clews, tradings, watch- 
ings, all the thrill and heart-bursting excitement of a 
man-hunt. Would he get away? Hardly a man on the 
ddewalks of the town that day who did not hope for it. 

As Annixter's team trotted through the central por- 
tion of the town, young Vacca pointed to a denser and 
larger crowd around the rear entrance of the City Hall. 
Fully twenty saddle horses were tied to the iron rail un- 
derneath the scant, half-grown trees near by, and as An- 
nixter and Hilma drove by, the crowd parted and a 
dozen men with revolvers on their hips pushed their way 
to the curbstone, and, mounting their horses, rode away 
at a gallop. 

“ IFs the posse,’' said young Vacca. 

Outside the town limits the ground was level. There 
was nothing to obstruct the view, and to the north, in the 
direction of Osterman’s ranch, Vacca made out another 
party of horsemen, galloping eastward, and beyond these 
still another. 

“ There’re the other posses,” he announced. "‘That fur- 
ther one is Archie Moore’s. He’s the sheriff. He came 
down from Visalia on a special engine this morning.” 

When the team turned into the driveway to the ranch 
house, Hilma uttered a little cry, clasping her hands 
joyfully. The house was one glitter of new white paint, 
the driveway had been freshly gravelled, the flower-beds 
replenished. Mrs. Vacca and her daughter, who had 
been busy putting on the finishing touches, came to the 
door to welcome them. 

'' What’s this case here ? ” asked Annixter, when, after 
helping his wife from the carry-all, his eye fell upon a 
wooden box of some three by five feet that stood on the 
porch and bore the red Wells-Fargo label. 


426 


The Octopus 


** It came here last night, addressed to you, sir,’* ex- 
claimed Mrs. Vacca. ‘'We were sure it wasn’t any of 
your furniture, so we didn’t open it.” 

” Oh, maybe it’s a wedding present,” exclaimed Hilma, 
her eyes sparkling. 

“Well, maybe it is,” returned her husband. “Here, 
m’ son, help me in with this.” 

Annixter and young Vacca bore the case into the sit- 
ting-room of the house, and Annixter, hammer in hand, 
attacked it vigorously. Vacca discreetly withdrew on 
signal from his mother, closing the door after him. An- 
nixter and his wife were left alone. 

“ Oh, hurry, hurry,” cried Hilma, dancing around him. 

“ I want to see what it is. Who do you suppose could 
have sent it to us? And so heavy, too. What do you 
think it can be ? ” 

Annixter put the claw of the hammer underneath the 
edge of the board top and wrenched with all his might. 
The boards had been clamped together by a transverse 
bar and the whole top of the box came away in one 
piece. A layer of excelsior was disclosed, and on it a 
letter addressed by typewriter to Annixter. It bore the 
trade-mark of a business firm of Los Angeles. Annixter 
glanced at this and promptly caught it up before Hilma 
could see, with an exclamation of intelligence. 

“ Oh, I know what this is,” he observed, carelessly try- 
ing to restrain her busy hands. “ It isn’t anything. Just 
some machinery. Let it go.” 

But already she had pulled away the excelsior. Un- 
derneath, in temporary racks, were two dozen Winches- 
ter repeating rifles. 

“ Why — what — what — ” murmured Hilma blankly. 

“ Well, I told you not to mind,” said Annixter. “ It 
isn’t anything. Let’s look through the rooms.” 

“ But you said you knew what it was,” she protested, 


A Story of California 427 

bewildered. “ You wanted to make believe it was ma- 
chinery. Are you keeping anything from me ? Tell me 
what it all means. Oh, why are you getting — these ? 

She caught his arm, looking with intense eagerness into 
his face. She half understood already. Annixter saw 
that. 

“ Well,” he said, lamely, “ you know — it may not come 
to anything at all, but you know — ^well, this League of 
ours — suppose the Railroad tries to jump Quien Sabe or 
Los Muertos or any of the other ranches — we made up 
our minds — the Leaguers have — that we wouldn’t let 
it. That’s all.” 

“And I thought,” cried Hilma, drawing back fear- 
fully from the case of rifles, “and I thought it was a 
wedding present.” 

And that was their home-coming, the end of their 
bridal trip. Through the terror of the night, echoing 
with pistol shots, through that scene of robbery and mur- 
der, into this atmosphere of alarms, a man-hunt organ- 
ising, armed horsemen silhouetted against the horizons, 
cases of rifles where wedding presents should have been, 
Annixter brought his young wife to be mistress of a 
home he might at any moment be called upon to defend 
with his life. 

The days passed. Soon a week had gone by. Magnus 
Derrick and Osterman returned from the city without 
any definite idea as to the Corporation’s plans. Lyman 
had been reticent. He knew nothing as to the progress 
of the land cases in Washington. There was no news. 
The Executive Committee of the League held a per- 
functory meeting at Los Muertos at which nothing but 
routine business was transacted. A scheme put forward 
by Osterman for a conference with the railroad man- 
agers fell through because of the refusal of the company 
to treat with the ranchers upon any other basis than 


428 The Octopus 

that of the new grading*. It was impossible to learn 
whether or not the company considered Los Muertos, 
Quien Sabe, and the ranches around Bonneville covered 
by the test cases then on appeal. 

Meanwhile there was no decrease in the excitement 
that Dyke’s hold-up had set loose over all the county. 
Day after day it was the one topic of conversation, at 
street corners, at cross-roads, over dinner tables, in office, 
bank, and store. S. Behrman placarded the town with a 
notice of $500.00 reward for the ex-engineer’s capture, 
dead or alive, and the express company supplemented 
this by another offer of an equal amount. The country 
was thick with parties of horsemen, armed with rifles 
and revolvers, recruited from Visalia, Goshen, and the 
few railroad sympathisers around Bonneville and Guad- 
lajara. One after another of these returned, empty- 
handed, covered with dust and mud, their horses ex- 
hausted, to be met and passed by fresh posses starting 
out to continue the pursuit. The sheriff of Santa Clara 
County sent down his bloodhounds from San Jose — > 
small, harmless-looking dogs, with a terrific bay — to help 
in the chase. Reporters from the San Francisco papers 
appeared, interviewing every one, sometimes even accom- 
panying the searching bands. Horse hoofs clattered over 
the roads at night ; bells were rung, the Mercury ” is- 
sued extra after extra ; the bloodhounds bayed, gun butts 
clashed on the asphalt pavements of Bonneville; acci- 
dental discharges of revolvers brought the whole town 
into the street; farm hands called to each other across 
the fences of ranch-divisions — in a word, the country- 
side was in an uproar. 

And all to no effect. The hoof-marks of Dyke’s horse 
had been traced in the mud of the road to within a quar- 
ter of a mile of the foot-hills and there irretrievably lost. 
Three days after the hold-up, a sheep-herder was found 


A Story of California 429 

who had seen the highwayman on a ridge in the higher 
mountains, to the northeast of Taurusa. And that was 
absolutely all. Rumours were thick, promising clews 
were discovered, new trails taken up, but nothing trans- 
pired to bring the pursuers and pursued any closer to- 
gether. Then, after ten days of strain, public interest 
began to flag. It was believed that Dyke had succeeded 
in getting away. If this was true, he had gone to the 
southward, after gaining the mountains, and it would 
be his intention to work out of the range some- 
where near the southern part of the San Joaquin, 
near Bakersfield. Thus, the sheriffs, marshals, and depu- 
ties decided. They had hunted too many criminals in 
these mountains before not to know the usual courses 
taken. In time. Dyke must come out of the mountains to 
get water and provisions. But this time passed, and from 
not one of the watched points came any word of his ap- 
pearance. At last the posses began to disband. Little 
by little the pursuit was given up. 

Only S. Behrman persisted. He had made up his mind 
to bring Dyke in. He succeeded in arousing the same 
degree of determination in Delaney — ^by now, a trusted 
aide of the Railroad — and of his own cousin, a real estate 
broker, named Christian, who knew the mountains and 
had once been marshal of Visalia in the old stock-raising 
days. These two went into the Sierras, accompanied by 
two hired deputies, and carrying with them a month's 
provisions and two of the bloodhounds loaned by the 
Santa Clara sheriff. 

On a certain Sunday, a few days after the departure 
of Christian and Delaney, Annixter, who had been read- 
ing David Copperfield" in his hammock on the porch 
of the ranch house, put down the book and went to find 
Hilma, who was helping Louisa Vacca set the table for 
dinner. He found her in the dining-room, her hands 


430 


The Octopus 

full of the gold-bordered china plates, only used on 
special occasions and which Louisa was forbidden to 
touch. 

His wife was more than ordinarily pretty that day. 
She wore a dress of flowered organdie over pink sateen, 
with pink ribbons about her waist and neck, and on her 
slim feet the low shoes she always affected, with their 
smart, bright buckles. Her thick, brown, sweet-smelling 
hair was heaped high upon her head and set off with a 
bow of black velvet, and underneath the shadow of its 
coils, her wide-open eyes, rimmed with the thin, black 
line of her lashes, shone continually, reflecting the sun- 
light. Marriage had only accentuated the beautiful 
maturity of Hilma’s figure — now no longer precocious — 
defining the single, deep swell from her throat to her 
waist, the strong, fine amplitude of her hips, the sweet, 
feminine undulation of her neck and shoulders. Her 
cheeks were pink with health, and her large round arms 
carried the piled-up dishes with never a tremour. Annix- 
ter, observant enough where his wife was concerned, 
noted how the reflection of the white china set a glow of 
pale light underneath her chin. 

'' Hilma,” he said, I’ve been wondering lately about 
things. We’re so blamed happy ourselves it won’t do for 
us to forget about other people who are down, will it? 
Might change our luck. And I’m just likely to forget 
that way, too. It’s my nature.” 

His wife looked up at him joyfully. Here was the 
new Annixter, certainly. 

** In all this hullabaloo about Dyke,” he went on, 
** there’s some one nobody ain’t thought about at all. 
That’s Mrs. Dyke — and the little tad. I wouldn’t be sur- 
prised if they were in a hole over there. What do you 
say we drive over to the hop ranch after dinner and see 
if she wants anything? ” 


A Story of California 431 

Hilma put down the plates and came around the table 
and kissed him without a word. 

As soon as their dinner was over, Annixter had the 
carry-all hitched up, and, dispensing with young Vacca, 
drove over to the hop ranch with Hilma. 

Hilma could not keep back the tears as they passed 
through the lamentable desolation of the withered, 
brown vines, symbols of perished hopes and abandoned 
effort, and Annixter swore between his teeth. 

Though the wheels of the carry-all grated loudly on 
the roadway in front of the house, nobody came to the 
door nor looked from the windows. The place seemed 
tenantless, infinitely lonely, infinitely sad. 

Annixter tied the team, and with Hilma approached 
the wide-open door, scuffling and tramping on the porch 
to attract attention. Nobody stirred. A Sunday stillness 
pervaded the place. Outside, the withered hop-leaves 
rustled like dry paper in the breeze. The quiet was 
ominous. They peered into the front room from the 
doorway, Hilma holding her husband’s hand. Mrs. Dyke 
was there. She sat at the table in the middle of the room, 
her head, with its white hair, down upon her arm. A 
clutter of unwashed dishes were strewed over the red 
and white tablecloth. The unkempt room, once a 
marvel of neatness, had not been cleaned for days. 
Newspapers, Genslinger’s extras and copies of San 
Francisco and Los Angeles dailies were scattered all 
over the room. On the table itself were crumpled yellow 
telegrams, a dozen of them, a score of them, blowing 
about in the draught from the door. And in the midst of 
all this disarray, surrounded by the published accounts 
of her son’s crime, the telegraphed answers to her pitiful 
appeals for tidings fluttering about her head, the high- 
wayman’s mother, worn out, abandoned and forgotten, 
slept through the stillness of the Sunday afternoon. 


432 


The Octopus 

Neither Hilma nor Annixter ever forgot their interview 
with Mrs. Dyke that day. Suddenly waking, she had 
caught sight of Annixter, and at once exclaimed eagerly : 

Is there any news? ” 

For a long time afterwards nothing could be got from 
her. She was numb to all other issues than the one ques- 
tion of Dyke’s capture. She did not answer their ques- 
tions nor reply to their offers of assistance. Hilma and 
Annixter conferred together without lowering their 
voices, at her very elbow, while she looked vacantly at 
the floor, drawing one hand over the other in a persistent 
maniacal gesture. From time to time she would start 
suddenly from her chair, her eyes wide, and as if all at 
once realising Annixter’s presence, would cry out : 

“ Is there any news ? ” 

''Where is Sidney, Mrs. Dyke?” asked Hilma for the 
fourth time. " Is she well? Is she taken care of ? ” 

" Here’s the last telegram,” said Mrs. Dyke, in a loud, 
monotonous voice. " See, it says there is no news. He 
didn’t do it,” she moaned, rocking herself back and forth, 
drawing one hand over the other, " he didn’t do it, he 
didn’t do it, he didn’t do it. I don’t know where he is.” 

When at last she came to herself, it was with a flood of 
tears. Hilma put her arms around the poor, old woman, 
as she bowed herself again upon the table, sobbing and 
weeping. 

" Oh, my son, my son,” she cried, " my own boy, my 
only son ! If I could have died for you to have prevented 
this. I remember him when he was little. Such a splen- 
did little fellow, so brave, so loving, with never an unkind 
thought, never a mean action. So it was all his life. We 
were never apart. It was always 'dear little son,' and 
' dear mammy ’ between us — never once was he unkind, 
and he loved me and was the gentlest son to me. And he 
was a good man. He is now, he is now. They don’t un- 


433 


A Story of California 

derstand him. They are not even sure that he did this. 
He never meant it. They don’t know my son. Why, he 
wouldn’t have hurt a kitten. Everybody loved him. He 
was driven to it. They hounded him down, they wouldn’t 
let him alone. He was not right in his mind. They 
hounded him to it,” she cried fiercely, they hounded 
him to it. They drove him and goaded him till he 
couldn’t stand it any longer, and now they mean to kill 
him for turning on them. They are hunting him with 
dogs; night after night I have stood on the porch and 
heard the dogs baying far off. They are tracking my boy 
with dogs like a wild animal. May God never forgive 
them.” She rose to her feet, terrible, her white hair un- 
bound. May God punish them as they deserve, may 
they never prosper — on my knees I shall pray for it every 
night — may their money be a curse to them, may their 
sons, their first-born, only sons, be taken from them in 
their youth.” 

But Hilma interrupted, begging her to be silent, to be 
quiet. The tears came again then and the choking sobs. 
Hilma took her in her arms. 

Oh, my little boy, my little boy,” she cried. “ My 
only son, all that I had, to have come to this! He was 
not right in his mind or he would have known it would 
break my heart. Oh, my son, my son, if I could have 
died for you.” 

Sidney came in, clinging to her dress, weeping, implor- 
ing her not to cry, protesting that they never could catch 
her papa, that he would come back soon. Hilma took 
them both, the little child and the broken-down old 
woman, in the great embrace of her strong arms, and they 
all three sobbed together. 

Annixter stood on the porch outside, his back turned, 
looking straight before him into the wilderness of dead 
vines, his teeth shut hard, his lower lip thrust out. 


434 


The Octopus 


I hope S. Behrman is satisfied with all this/’ he mut- 
tered. ** I hope he is satisfied now, damn his soul I” 

All at once an idea occurred to him. He turned about 
and reentered the room. 

Mrs. Dyke,” he began, ** I want you and Sidney to 
come over and live at Quien Sabe. I know — ^you can’t 
make me believe that the reporters and officers and 
officious busy-faces that pretend to oifer help just so as 
they can satisfy their curiosity aren’t nagging you to 
death. I want you to let me take care of you and the 
little tad till all this trouble of yours is over with. 
There’s plenty of place for you. You can have the 
house my wife’s people used to live in. You’ve got 
to look these things in the face. What are you going 
to do to get along? You must be very short of money. 
S. Behrman will foreclose on you and take the whole 
place in a little while, now. I want you to let me help 
you, let Hilma and me be good friends to you. It 
would be a privilege.” 

Mrs. Dyke tried bravely to assume her pride, insisting 
that she could manage, but her spirit was broken. The 
whole affair ended unexpectedly, with Annixter and 
Hilma bringing Dyke’s mother and little girl back to 
Quien Sabe in the carry-all. 

Mrs. Dyke would not take with her a stick of furniture 
nor a single ornament. It would only serve to remind her 
of a vanished happiness. She packed a few clothes of her 
own and Sidney’s in a little trunk, Hilma helping her, 
and Annixter stowed the trunk under the carry-all’s back 
seat. Mrs. Dyke turned the key in the door of the house 
and Annixter helped her to her seat beside his wife. They 
drove through the sear, brown hop vines. At the angle 
of the road Mrs. Dyke turned around and looked back at 
the ruin of the hop ranch, the roof of the house just 
showing above the trees. She never saw it again. 


435 


A Story of California 

As soon as Annixter and Hilma were alone, after their 
return to Quien Sabe — Mrs. Dyke and Sidney having 
been installed in the Trees’ old house — Hilma threw her 
arms around her husband’s neck. 

“ Fine,” she exclaimed, “ oh, it was fine of you, dear, 
to think of them and to be so good to them. My husband 
is such a good man. So unselfish. You wouldn’t have 
thought of being kind to Mrs. Dyke and Sidney a little 
while ago. You wouldn’t have thought of them at all. 
But you did now, and it’s just because you love me true, 
isn’t it? Isn’t it? And because it’s made you a better 
man. I’m so proud and glad to think it’s so. It is so, 
isn’t it? Just because you love me true.” 

“ You bet it is, Hilma,” he told her. 

As Hilma and Annixter were sitting down to the sup- 
per which they found waiting for them, Louisa Vacca 
came to the door of the dining-room to say that Harran 
Derrick had telephoned over from Los Muertos for 
Annixter, and had left word for him to ring up Los 
Muertos as soon as he came in. 

He said it was important,” added Louisa Vacca. 

‘‘ Maybe they have news from Washington,” suggested 
Hilma. 

Annixter would not wait to have supper, but tele- 
phoned to Los Muertos at once. Magnus answered the 
call. There was a special meeting of the Executive Com- 
mittee of the League summoned for the next day, he told 
Annixter. It was for the purpose of considering the new 
grain tariff prepared by the Railroad Commissioners. 
Lyman had written that the schedule of this tariff had 
just been issued, that he had not been able to construct it 
precisely according to the wheat-growers’ wishes, and 
that he, himself, would come down to Los Muertos and 
explain its apparent discrepancies. Magnus said Lyman 
would be present at the session. 


436 


The Octopus 


Annixter, curious for details, forbore, nevertheless, to 
question. The connection from Los Muertos to Quien 
Sabe was made through Bonneville, and in those trouble- 
some times no one could be trusted. It could not be 
known who would overhear conversations carried on over 
the lines. He assured Magnus that he would be on hand. 

The time for the Committee meeting had been set for 
seven o’clock in the evening, in order to accommodate 
Lyman, who wrote that he would be down on the evening 
train, but would be compelled, by pressure of business, 
to return to the city early the next morning. 

At the time appointed, the men composing the Com- 
mittee gathered about the table in the dining-room of the 
Los Muertos ranch house. It was almost a reproduction 
of the scene of the famous evening when Osterman had 
proposed the plan of the Ranchers’ Railroad Commission. 
Magnus Derrick sat at the head of the table, in his but- 
toned frock coat. Whiskey bottles and siphons of soda- 
water were within easy reach. Presley, who by now was 
considered the confidential friend of every member of the 
Committee, lounged as before on the sofa, smoking cigar- 
ettes, the cat Nathalie on his knee. Besides Magnus and 
Annixter, Osterman was present, and old Broderson and 
Harran; Garnet from the Ruby Rancho and Gethings of 
the San Pablo, who were also members of the Executive 
Committee, were on hand, preoccupied, bearded men, 
smoking black cigars, and, last of all, Dabney, the silent 
old man, of whom little was known but his name, and 
who had been made a member of the Committee, nobody 
could tell why. 

“ My son Lyman should be here, gentlemen, within at 
least ten minutes. I have sent my team to meet him at 
Bonneville,” explained Magnus, as he called the meeting 
to order. “ The Secretary will call the roll.” 

Osterman called the roll^ and, to fill in the time, read 


437 


A Story of California 

over the minutes of the previous meeting. The treasurer 
was making his report as to the funds at the disposal 
of the League when Lyman arrived. 

Magnus and Harran went forward to meet him, and 
the Committee rather awkwardly rose and remained 
standing while the three exchanged greetings, the mem- 
bers, some of whom had never seen their commissioner, 
eyeing him out of the corners of their eyes. 

Lyman was dressed with his usual correctness. His 
cravat was of the latest fashion, his clothes of careful 
design and unimpeachable fit. His shoes, of patent 
leather, reflected the lamplight, and he carried a drab over- 
coat over his arm. Before being introduced to the Com- 
mittee, he excused himself a moment and ran to see his 
mother, who waited for him in the adjoining sitting- 
room. But in a few moments he returned, asking pardon 
for the delay. 

He was all affability ; his protruding eyes, that gave such 
an unusual, foreign appearance to his very dark face, 
radiated geniality. He was evidently anxious to please, 
to produce a good impression upon the grave, clumsy 
farmers before whom he stood. But at the same time, 
Presley, watching him from his place on the sofa, could 
imagine that he was rather nervous. He was too nimble 
in his cordiality, and the little gestures he made in bring- 
ing his cuffs into view and in touching the ends of his 
tight, black mustache with the ball of his thumb were 
repeated with unnecessary frequency. 

Mr. Broderson, my son, Lyman, my eldest son. Mr, 
Annixter, my son, Lyman.’’ 

The Governor introduced him to the ranchers, proud of 
Lyman’s good looks, his correct dress, his ease of manner. 
Lyman shook hands all around, keeping up a flow of 
small talk, finding a new phrase for each member, compli- 
menting Osterman, whom he already knew, upon his 


The Octopus 


438 

talent for organisation, recalling a mutual acquaintance 
to the mind of old Broderson. At length, however, he 
sat down at the end of the table, opposite his brother. 
There was a silence. 

Magnus rose to recapitulate the reasons for the extra 
session of the Committee, stating again that the Board of 
Railway Commissioners which they — the ranchers — had 
succeeded in seating had at length issued the new sched- 
ule of reduced rates, and that Mr. Derrick had been oblig- 
ing enough to offer to come down to Los Muertos in 
person to acquaint the wheat-growers of the San Joaquin 
with the new rates for the carriage of their grain. 

But Lyman very politely protested, addressing his 
father punctiliously as Mr. Chairman,” and the other 
ranchers as “ Gentlemen of the Executive Committee of 
the League.” He had no wish, he said, to disarrange the 
regular proceedings of the Committee. Would it not be 
preferable to defer the reading of his report till new 
business ” was called for ? In the meanwhile, let the 
Committee proceed with its usual work. He understood 
the necessarily delicate nature of this work, and would 
be pleased to withdraw till the proper time arrived for 
him to speak. 

“ Good deal of backing and filling about the reading of 
a column of figures,” muttered Annixter to the man at 
his elbow. 

Lyman awaited the Committee’s decision.” He sat 
down, touching the ends of his mustache. 

“ Oh, play ball,” growled Annixter. 

Gethings rose to say that as the meeting had been 
called solely for the purpose of hearing and considering 
the new grain tariff, he was of the opinion that routine 
business could be dispensed with and the schedule read 
at once. It was so ordered. 

Lyman rose and made a long speech. Voluble as Os- 


439 


A Story of California 

terman himself, he, nevertheless, had at his command a 
vast number of ready-made phra-ses, the staples of a po- 
litical speaker, the stock in trade of the commercial law- 
yer, which rolled off his tongue with the most persuasive 
fluency. By degrees, in the course of his speech, he be- 
gan to insinuate the idea that the wheat-growers had 
never expected to settle their difficulties with the Railroad 
by the work of a single commission ; that they had counted 
upon a long, continued campaign of many years, railway 
commission succeeding railway commission, before the 
desired low rates should be secured; that the present 
Board of Commissioners was only the beginning and 
that too great results were not expected from them. 
All this he contrived to mention casually, in the talk, as 
if it were a foregone conclusion, a matter understood 
by all. 

As the speech continued, the eyes of the ranchers 
around the table were fixed with growing attention upon 
this well-dressed, city-bred young man, who spoke so 
fluently and who told them of their own intentions. A 
feeling of perplexity began to spread, and the first taint 
of distrust invaded their minds. 

‘‘ But the good work has been most auspiciously in- 
augurated,’^ continued Lyman. Reforms so sweeping 
as the one contemplated cannot be accomplished in a 
single night. Great things grow slowly, benefits to be 
permanent must accrue gradually. Yet, in spite of all 
this, your commissioners have done much. Already the 
phalanx of the enemy is pierced, already his armour is 
dinted. Pledged as were your commissioners to an aver- 
age ten per cent, reduction in rates for the carriage of 
grain by the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, we have 
rigidly adhered to the demands of our constituency, we 
have obeyed the People. The main problem has not yet 
been completely solved ; that is for later, when we shall 


440 


The Octopus 

have gathered sufficient strength to attack the enemy in 
his very stronghold; butjan average ten per cent, cut has 
been made all over the We have made a great ad- 

vance, have taken a great step forward, and if the work 
is carried ahead, upon the lines laid down by the present 
commissioners and their constituents, there is every rea- 
son to believe that within a very few years equitable and 
stable rates for the shipment of grain from the San 
Joaquin Valley to Stockton, Port Costa, and tidewater 
will be permanently imposed.” 

“ Well, hold on,” exclaimed Annixter, out of order and 
ignoring the Governor’s reproof, hasn’t your commis- 
sion reduced grain rates in the San Joaquin ? ” 

“We have reduced grain rates by ten per cent, all over 
the State,” rejoined Lyman. “Here are copies of the 
new schedule.” 

He drew them from his valise and passed them around 
the table. 

“You see,” he observed, “the rate between Mayfield 
and Oakland, for instance, has been reduced by twenty- 
five cents a ton.” 

“ Yes — but — but — ” said old Broderson, “ it is rather 
unusual, isn’t it, for wheat in that district to be sent to 
Oakland ? ” 

“Why, look here,” exclaimed Annixter, looking up 
from the schedule, “ where is there any reduction in rates 
in the San Joaquin — from Bonneville and Guadalajara, 
for instance? I don’t see as you’ve made any reduction 
at all. Is this right? Did you give me the right 
schedule ? ” 

“ Of course, all the points in the State could not be 
covered at once,” returned Lyman. “We never expected, 
you know, that we could cut rates in the San Joaquin 
the very first move; that is for later. But you will sec 
we made very material reductions on shipments from the 


A Story of California 441 

upper Sacramento Valley; also the rate from lone to 
Marysville has been reduced eighty cents a ton/’ 

Why, rot,” cried Annixter, “ no one ever ships wheat 
that way.” 

The Salinas rate,” continued Lyman, has been low« 
ered seventy-five cents; the St. Helena rate fifty cents, 
and please notice the very drastic cut from Red Bluff, 
north, along the Oregon route, to the Oregon State 
Line.” 

Where not a carload of wheat is shipped in a year,” 
commented Gethings of the San Pablo. 

‘'Oh, you will find yourself mistaken there, Mr. 
Gethings,” returned Lyman courteously. “And for the 
matter of that, a low rate would stimulate wheat- 
production in that district.” 

The order of the meeting was broken up, neglected; 
Magnus did not even pretend to preside. In the growing 
excitement over the inexplicable schedule, routine was not 
thought of. Every one spoke at will. 

“ Why, Lyman,” demanded Magnus, looking across the 
table to his son, “ is this schedule correct ? You have not 
cut rates in the San Joaquin at all. We — these gentle- 
men here and myself, we are no better off than we were 
before we secured your election as commissioner.” 

“We were pledged to make an average ten per cent, 
cut, sir ” 

“ It is an average ten per cent, cut,” cried Osterman. 
“ Oh, yes, that’s plain. It’s an average ten per cent, cut 
all right, but you’ve made it by cutting grain rates be- 
tween points where practically no grain is shipped. 
We, the wheat-growers in the San Joaquin, where all 
the wheat is grown, are right where we were before. 
The Railroad won’t lose a nickel. By Jingo, boys,” he 
glanced around the table, “ I'd like to know what this 
means.'' 


442 


The Octopus 

“ The Railroad, if you come to that,'' returned Lyman, 

has already lodged a protest against the new rate." 

Annixter uttered a derisive shout. 

A protest ! That's good, that is. When the P. and S. 
W. objects to rates it don't * protest,' m' son. The first 
you hear from Mr. Shelgrim is an injunction from the 
courts preventing the order for new rates from taking 
effect. By the Lord," he cried angrily, leaping to his 
feet, “ I would like to know what all this means, too. 
Why didn’t you reduce our grain rates? What did we 
elect you for ? " 

“Yes, what did we elect you for?" demanded Oster- 
man and Gethings, also getting to their feet. 

“ Order, order, gentlemen,” cried Magnus, remem- 
bering the duties of his office and rapping his knuckles 
on the table. This meeting has been allowed to de- 
generate too far already." 

“ You elected us," declared Lyman doggedly, “ to 
make an average ten per cent, cut on grain rates. We 
have done it. Only because you don't benefit at once, 
you object. It makes a difference whose ox is gored, it 
seems." 

Lyman ! " 

It was Magnus who spoke. He had drawn himself 
to his full six feet. His eyes were flashing direct into 
his son’s. His voice rang with severity. 

Lyman, what does this mean ? " 

The other spread out his hands. 

As you see, sir. We have done our best. I warned 
you not to expect too much. I told you that this ques- 
tion of transportation was difficult. You would not wish 
to put rates so low that the action would amount to con- 
fiscation of property." 

“Why did you not lower rates in the valley of the 
San Joaquin?" 


A Story of California 


443 


‘‘That was not a prominent issue in the affair/' re- 
sponded Lyman, carefully emphasising his words. ‘‘ I 
understand, of course, it was to be approached in time. 
The main point was an average ten per cent, reduction. 
Rates will be lowered in the San Joaquin. The ranchers 
around Bonneville will be able to ship to Port Costa at 
equitable rates, but so radical a measure as that cannot be 
put through in a turn of the hand. We must study ” 

“ You knezv the San Joaquin rate was an issue,’' 
shouted Annixter, shaking his finger across the table. 
“ What do we men who backed you care about rates up 
in Del Norte and Siskiyou Counties? Not a whoop in 
hell. It was the San Joaquin rate we were fighting for, 
and we elected you to reduce that. You didn’t do it and 
you don’t intend to, and, by the Lord Harry, I want to 
know why.” 

“ You’ll know, sir — ” began Lyman. 

“ Well, I’ll tell you why,” vociferated Osterman. “ I’ll 
tell you why. It’s because we have been sold out. It’s 
because the P. and S. W. have had their spoon in this 
boiling. It’s because our commissioners have betrayed 
us. It’s because we’re a set of damn fool farmers and 
have been cinched again.” 

Lyman paled under his dark skin at the direct attack. 
He evidently had not expected this so soon. For the 
fraction of one instant he lost his poise. He strove to 
speak, but caught his breath, stammering. 

“ What have you to say, then ? ” cried Harran, who, 
until now, had not spoken. 

I have this to say,” answered Lyman, making head 
as best he might, “ that this is no proper spirit in which 
to discuss business. The Commission has fulfilled its 
obligations. It has adjusted rates to the best of its 
ability. We have been at work for two months on the 
preparation of this schedule ” 


444 


The Octopus 

That’s a lie,” shouted Annixter, his face scarlet; 

that’s a lie. That schedule was drawn in the offices of 
the Pacific and Southwestern and you know it. It’s a 
scheme of rates made for the Railroad and by the Rail- 
road and you were bought over to put your name to it.” 

There was a concerted outburst at the words. All the 
men in the room were on their feet, gesticulating and 
vociferating. 

Gentlemen, gentlemen,” cried Magnus, ** are we 
schoolboys, are we ruffians of the street ? ” 

'' We’re a set of fool farmers and we’ve been betrayed,” 
cried Osterman. 

'‘Well, what have you to say? What have you to 
say ? ” persisted Harran, leaning across the table toward 
his brother. “ For God’s sake, Lyman, you’ve got some 
explanation.” 

“ You’ve misunderstood,” protested Lyman, white and 
trembling. “You’ve misunderstood. You’ve expected 
too much. Next year, — next year, — soon now, the Com- 
mission will take up the — the Commission will consider 
the San Joaquin rate. We’ve done our best, that is all.” 

“Have you, sir?” demanded Magnus. 

The Governor’s head was in a whirl; a sensation, 
almost of faintness, had seized upon him. Was it pos- 
sible ? Was it possible ? 

“ Have you done your best ? ” For a second he com- 
pelled Lyman’s eye. The glances of father and son 
met, and, in spite of his best efforts, Lyman’s eyes wav- 
ered. He began to protest once more, explaining the 
matter over again from the beginning. But Magnus did 
not listen. In that brief lapse of time he was convinced 
that the terrible thing had happened, that the unbeliev- 
able had come to pass. It was in the air. Between father 
and son, in some subtle fashion, the truth that was a lie 
stood suddenly revealed. But even then Magnus would 


445 


A Story of California 

not receive it. Lyman do this ! His son, his eldest son, 
descend to this! Once more and for the last time he 
turned to him and in his voice there was that ring that 
compelled silence. 

Lyman/^ he said, I adjure you — I — I demand of 
you as you are my son and an honourable man, explain 
yourself. What is there behind all this? It is no longer 
as Chairman of the Committee I speak to you, you a 
member of the Railroad Commission. It is your father 
who speaks, and I address you as my son. Do you un- 
derstand the gravity of this crisis; do you realise the 
responsibility of your position; do you not see the im- 
portance of this moment? Explain yourself.’^ 

** There is nothing to explain.^’ 

“You have not reduced rates in the San Joaquin? 
You have not reduced rates between Bonneville and tide- 
water ? 

“ I repeat, sir, what I said before. An average ten 
per cent, cut 

“Lyman, answer me, yes or no. Have you reduced 
the Bonneville rate ? 

“ It could not be done so soon. Give us time. We 


“ Yes or no ! By God, sir, do you dare equivocate with 
me ? Yes or no ; have you reduced the Bonneville rate ? ” 

“ No.^’ 

“ And answer mej' shouted Harran, leaning far across 
the table, “ answer me. Were you paid by the Railroad 
to leave the San Joaquin rate untouched? 

Lyman, whiter than ever, turned furious upon his 
brother. 

“ Don't you dare put that question to me again." 

“ No, I won't," cried Harran, “ because I'll tell you to 
your villain's face that you were paid to do it." 

On the instant the clamour burst forth afresh. Still 


44^ The Octopus 

on their feet, the ranchers had, little by little, worked 
around the table, Magnus alone keeping his place. The 
others were in a group before Lyman, crowding him, as 
it were, to the wall, shouting into his face with menacing 
gestures. The truth that was a lie, the certainty of a 
trust betrayed, a pledge ruthlessly broken, was plain to 
every one of them. 

'' By the Lord ! men have been shot for less than this,^' 
cried Osterman. '‘You’ve sold us out, you, and if you 
ever bring that dago face of yours on a level with mine 
again. Til slap it.” 

“ Keep your hands off,” exclaimed Lyman quickly, the 
aggressiveness of the cornered rat flaming up within 
him. “ No violence. Don’t you go too far.” 

“ How much were you paid ? How much were you 
paid?” vociferated Harran. 

“Yes, yes, what was your price?” cried the others. 
They were beside themselves with anger; their words 
came harsh from between their set teeth; their gestures 
were made with their fists clenched. 

“ You know the Commission acted in good faith,” re- 
torted Lyman. “ You know that all was fair and above 
board.” 

“Liar,” shouted Annixter; “liar, bribe-eater. You 
were bought and paid for,” and with the words his arm 
seemed almost of itself to leap out from his shoulder. 
Lyman received the blow squarely in the face and the 
force of it sent him staggering backwards toward the 
wall. He tripped over his valise and fell half way, his 
back supported against the closed door of the room. 
Magnus sprang forward. His son had been struck, and 
the instincts of a father rose up in instant protest; rose 
for a moment, then forever died away in his heart. He 
checked the words that flashed to his mind. He lowered 
his upraised arm. No, he had but one son. The poor, 


447 


A Story of California 

staggering creature with the fine clothes, white face, and 
blood-streaked lips was no longer his. A blow could not 
dishonour him more than he had dishonoured himself. 

But Gethings, the older man, intervened, pulling An- 
nixter back, crying: 

Stop, this won’t do. Not before his father.” 

I am no father to this man, gentlemen,” exclaimed 
Magnus. “ From now on, I have but one son. You, 
sir,” he turned to Lyman, you, sir, leave my house.” 

Lyman, his handkerchief to his lips, his smart cravat 
in disarray, caught up his hat and coat. He was shaking 
with fury, his protruding eyes were blood-shot. He 
swung open the door. 

“Ruffians,” he shouted from the threshold, “ruffians, 
bullies. Do your own dirty business yourselves after 
this. I’m done with you. How is it, all of a sudden 
you talk about honour ? How is it that all at once you’re 
so clean and straight ? You weren’t so particular at Sac- 
ramento just before the nominations. How was the 
Board elected? I’m a bribe-eater, am I? Is it any 
worse than giving a bribe? Ask Magnus Derrick what 
he thinks about that. Ask him how much he paid the 
Democratic bosses at Sacramento to swing the conven- 
tion.” 

He went out, slamming the door. 

Presley followed. The whole affair made him sick at 
heart, filled him with infinite disgust, infinite weariness. 
He wished to get away from it all. He left the dining- 
room and the excited, clamouring men behind him and 
stepped out on the porch of the ranch house, closing the 
door behind him. Lyman was nowhere in sight. Presley 
was alone. It was late, and after the lamp-heated air 
of the dining-room, the coolness of the night was deli- 
cious, and its vast silence, after the noise and fury of 
the committee meeting, descended from the stars like a 


448 


The Octopus 

benediction. Presley stepped to the edge of the porch, 
looking oflf to southward. 

And there before him, mile after mile, illimitable, cov- 
ering the earth from horizon to horizon, lay the Wheat. 
The growth, now many days old, was already high from 
the ground. There it lay, a vast, silent ocean, shimmer- 
ing a pallid green under the moon and under the stars; 
a mighty force, the strength of nations, the life of the 
world. There in the night, under the dome of the sky, 
it was growing steadily. To Presley’s mind, the scene 
in the room he had just left dwindled to paltry insignifi- 
cance before this sight. Ah, yes, the Wheat — it was over 
this that the Railroad, the ranchers, the traitor false to 
his trust, all the members of an obscure conspiracy, were 
wrangling. As if human agency could affect this colos- 
sal power ! What were these heated, tiny squabbles, this 
feverish, small bustle of mankind, this minute swarming 
of the human insect, to the great, majestic, silent ocean 
of the Wheat itself! Indifferent, gigantic, resistless, it 
moved in its appointed grooves. Men, Liliputians, gnats 
in the sunshine, buzzed impudently in their tiny battles, 
were born, lived through their little day, died, and were 
forgotten; while the Wheat, wrapped in Nirvanic calm, 
grew steadily under the night, alone with the stars and 
with God. 


V 


Jack-rabbits were a pest that year and Presley occa- 
sionally found amusement in hunting them with Harran’s 
half-dozen greyhounds, following the chase on horse- 
back. One day, between two and three months after 
Lyman’s visit to Los Muertos, as he was returning 
toward the ranch house from a distant and lonely quarter 
of Los Muertos, he came unexpectedly upon a strange 
sight. 

Some twenty men, Annixter’s and Osterman’s tenants, 
and small ranchers from east of Guadalajara — all mem- 
bers of the League — were going through the manual of 
arms under Harran Derrick’s supervision. They were 
all equipped with new Winchester rifles. Harran carried 
one of these himself and with it he illustrated the various 
commands he gave. As soon as one of the men under 
his supervision became more than usually proficient, he 
was told off to instruct a file of the more backward. 
After the manual of arms, Harran gave the command to 
take distance as skirmishers, and when the line had 
opened out so that some half-dozen feet intervened be- 
tween each man, an advance was made across the field, 
the men stooping low and snapping the hammers of their 
rifles at an imaginary enemy. 

The League had its agents in San Francisco, who 
watched the movements of the Railroad as closely as was 
possible, and some time before this, Annixter had re- 
ceived word that the Marshal and his deputies were 
coming down to Bonneville to put the dummy buyers of 
his ranch in possession. The report proved to be but th^ 


450 


The Octopus 


first of many false alarms, but it had stimulated the 
League to unusual activity, and some three or four tiun- 
dred men were furnished with arms and from time to 
time were drilled in secret 

Among themselves, the ranchers said that if the Rail- 
road managers did not believe they were terribly in 
earnest in the stand they had taken, they were making a 
fatal mistake. 

Harran reasserted this statement to Presley on the 
way home to the ranch house that same day. Harran 
had caught up with him by the time he reached the 
Lower Road, and the two jogged homeward through 
the miles of standing wheat. 

‘‘ They may jump the ranch, Pres,’^ he said, “ if they 
try hard enough, but they will never do it while I am 
alive. By the way,"’ he added, you know we served 
notices yesterday upon S. Behrman and Cy. Ruggles to 
quit the country. Of course, they won’t do it, but they 
won’t be able to say they didn’t have warning.” 

About an hour later, the two reached the ranch house, 
but as Harran rode up the driveway, he uttered an 
exclamation. 

“ Hello,” he said, something is up. That’s Gensling- 
er’s buckboard.” 

In fact, the editor’s team was tied underneath the shade 
of a giant eucalyptus tree near by. Harran, uneasy 
under this unexpected visit of the enemy’s friend, dis- 
mounted without stabling his horse, and went at once to 
the dining-room, where visitors were invariably received. 
But the dining-room was empty, and his mother told 
him that Magnus and the editor were in the ** office.” 
Magnus had said they were not to be disturbed. 

Earlier in the afternoon, the editor had driven up to 
the porch and had asked Mrs. Derrick, whom he found 
reading a book of poems on the porch, if he could see 


A Story of California 451 

Magnus. At the time, the Governor had gone with 
Phelps to inspect the condition of the young wheat on 
Hooven’s holding, but within half an hour he returned, 
and Genslinger had asked him for a '' few moments’ talk 
in private.” 

The two went into the office,” Magnus locking the 
door behind him. 

Very complete you are here. Governor,” observed the 
editor in his alert, jerky manner, his black, bead-like eyes 
twinkling around the room from behind his glasses. 
“ Telephone, safe, ticker, account-books — well, that’s 
progress, isn’t it? Only way to manage a big ranch 
these days. But the day of the big ranch is over. As 
the land appreciates in value, the temptation to sell off 
small holdings will be too strong. And then the small 
holding can be cultivated to better advantage. I shall 
have an editorial on that some day.” 

The cost of maintaining a number of small holdings,” 
said Magnus, indifferently, is, of course, greater than if 
they were all under one management.” 

“ That may be, that may be,” rejoined the other. 

There was a long pause. Genslinger leaned back in 
his chair and rubbed a knee. Magnus, standing erect in 
front of the safe, waited for him to speak. 

“ This is an unfortunate business. Governor,” began the 
editor, “ this misunderstanding between the ranchers and 
the Railroad. I wish it could be adjusted. Here are two 
industries that must be in harmony with one another, or 
we all go to pot.” 

'' I should prefer not to be interviewed on the subject, 
Mr. Genslinger,” said Magnus. 

'' Oh, no, oh, no. Lord love you. Governor, I don’t 
want to interview you. We all know how you stand.” 

Again there was a long silence. Magnus wondered 
what this little man, usually so garrulous, could want of 


452 


The Octopus 

him. At length, Genslinger began again. He did not 
look at Magnus, except at long intervals. 

About the present Railroad Commission,^^ he re- 
marked. That was an interesting campaign you con- 
ducted in Sacramento and San Francisco.” 

Magnus held his peace,, his hands shut tight. Did Gen- 
slinger know of Lyman’s disgrace? Was it for this he 
had come ? Would the story of it be the leading article 
in to-morrow’s Mercury? 

“ An interesting campaign,” repeated Genslinger, 
slowly ; a very interesting campaign. I watched it with 
every degree of interest. I saw its every phase, Mr. 
Derrick.” 

“ The campaign was not without its interest,’* admitted 
Magnus. 

“ Yes,” said Genslinger, still more deliberately, and 
some phases of it were — more interesting than others, as, 
for instance, let us say the way in which you — personally 
— secured the votes of certain chairmen of delegations — 
need I particularise further? Yes, those men — the way 
you got their votes. Now, that I should say, Mr. Der- 
rick, was the most interesting move in the whole game — 
to you. Hm, curious,” he murmured, musingly. Let’s 
see. You deposited two one-thousand dollar bills and 
four five-hundred dollar bills in a box — three hundred 
and eight was the number — in a box in the Safety Deposit 
Vaults in San Francisco, and then — let’s see, you gave 
a key to this box to each of the gentlemen in question, 
and after the election the box was empty. Now, I call 
that interesting — curious, because it’s a new, safe, and 
highly ingenious method of bribery. How did you hap- 
pen to think of it. Governor ? ” 

“ Do you know what you are doing, sir ? ” Magnus 
burst forth. ** Do you know what you are insinuating, 
here, in my own house ? ’* 


453 


A Story of California 

** Why, Governor,” returned the editor, blandly, Tm 
not insinuating anything. I’m talking about what I 
knozv.'* 

It’s a lie.” 

Genslinger rubbed his chin reflectively. 

“ Well,” he answered, you can have a chance to prove 
it before the Grand Jury, if you want to.” 

“ My character is known all over the State,” blustered 
Magnus. “ My politics are pure politics. My ” 

“ No one needs a better reputation for pure politics 
than the man who sets out to be a briber,” interrupted 
Genslinger, and I might as well tell you. Governor, that 
you can’t shout me down. I can put my hand on the two 
chairmen you bought before it’s dark to-day. I’ve had 
their depositions in my safe for the last six weeks. We 
could make the arrests to-morrow, if we wanted. Gov- 
ernor, you sure did a risky thing when you went into 
that Sacramento fight, an awful risky thing. Some men 
can afford to have bribery charges preferred against 
them, and it don’t hurt one little bit, but you — Lord, it 
would bust you. Governor, bust you dead. I know all 
about the whole shananigan business from A to Z, and if 
you don’t believe it — here,” he drew a long strip of paper 
from his pocket, '' here’s a galley proof of the story.” 

Magnus took it in his hands. There, under his eyes, 
scare-headed, double-leaded, the more important clauses 
printed in bold type, was the detailed account of the 

deal ” Magnus had made with the two delegates. It 
was pitiless, remorseless, bald. Every statement was sub- 
stantiated, every statistic verified with Genslinger’s 
meticulous love for exactness. Besides all that, it had the 
ring of truth. It was exposure, ruin, absolute annihila- 
tion. 

“ That’s about correct, isn’t it ? ” commented Gen- 
slinger, as Derrick finished reading. Magnus did not 


454 The Octopus 

reply. I think it is correct enough,” the editor con* 
tinued. But I thought it would only be fair to you to 
let you see it before it was published.” 

The one thought uppermost in Derrick’s mind, his one 
impulse of the moment was, at whatever cost, to preserve 
his dignity, not to allow this man to exult in the sight of 
one quiver of weakness, one trace of defeat, one sug- 
gestion of humiliation. By an eifort that put all his iron 
rigidity to the test, he forced himself to look straight into 
Genslinger’s eyes. 

‘‘ I congratulate you,” he observed, handing back the 
proof, “ upon your journalistic enterprise. Your paper 
will sell to-morrow.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know as I want to publish this story,” 
remarked the editor, indifferently, putting away the gal- 
ley. “ I’m just like that. The fun for me is running a 
good story to earth, but once I’ve got it, I lose interest. 
And, then, I wouldn’t like to see you — holding the posi- 
tion you do. President of the League and a leading man 
of the county — I wouldn’t like to see a story like this 
smash you over. It’s worth more to you to keep it out 
of print than for me to put it in. I’ve got nothing much 
to gain but a few extra editions, but you — Lord, you 
would lose everything. Your committee was in the deal 
right enough. But your League, all the San Joaquin Val- 
ley, everybody in the State believes the commissioners 
were fairly elected.” 

Your story,” suddenly exclaimed Magnus, struck 
with an idea, “ will be thoroughly discredited just so soon 
as the new grain tariff is published. I have means of 
knowing that the San Joaquin rate — the issue upon which 
the board was elected — is not to be touched. Is it likely 
the ranchers would secure the election of a board that 
plays them false? ” 

** Oh, we know all about that,” answered Genslinger^ 


455 


A Story of California 

smiling. ** You thought you were electing Lyman easily. 
You thought you had got the Railroad to walk right 
into your trap. You didn’t understand how you could 
pull off your deal so easily. Why, Governor, Lyman was 
pledged to the Railroad two years ago. He was the one 
particular man the corporation wanted for commissioner. 
And your people elected him — saved the Railroad all the 
trouble of campaigning for him. And you can’t make 
any counter charge of bribery there. No, sir, the corpora- 
tion don’t use such amateurish methods as that. Con- 
fidentially and between us two, all that the Railroad has 
done for Lyman, in order to attach him to their interests, 
is to promise to back him politically in the next cam- 
paign for Governor. It’s too bad,” he continued, drop- 
ping his voice, and changing his position. It really is 
too bad to see good men trying to bunt a stone wall over 
with their bare heads. You couldn’t have won at any 
stage of the game. I wish I could have talked to you 
and your friends before you went into that Sacramento 
fight. I could have told you then how little chance you 
had. When will you people realise that you can’t buck 
against the Railroad? Why, Magnus, it’s like me going 
out in a paper boat and shooting peas at a battleship.” 

Is that all you wished to see me about, Mr. Gen- 
slinger ? ” remarked Magnus, bestirring himself. I am 
rather occupied to-day.” 

“ Well,” returned the other, you know what the pub- 
lication of this article would mean for you.” He paused 
again, took off his glasses, breathed on them, polished the 
lenses with his handkerchief and readjusted them on his 
nose. ‘‘ I’ve been thinking. Governor,” he began again, 
with renewed alertness, and quite irrelevantly, “ of en- 
larging the scope of the ^ Mercury.’ You see. I’m mid- 
way between the two big centres of the State, San Fran- 
cisco and Los Angeles, and I want to extend the ‘ Mer- 


456 


The Octopus 


cury's ’ sphere of influence as far up and down the valley 
as I can. I want to illustrate the paper. You see, if I had 
a photo-engraving plant of my own, I could do a good 
deal of outside jobbing as well, and the investment would 
pay ten per cent. But it takes money to make money. I 
wouldn’t want to put in any dinky, one-horse aflfair. I 
want a good plant. I’ve been figuring out the business. 
Besides the plant, there would be the expense of a high 
grade paper. Can’t print half-tones on anything but 
coated paper, and that costs. Well, what with this and 
with that and running expenses till the thing began to 
pay, it would cost me about ten thousand dollars, and I 
was wondering if, perhaps, you couldn’t see your way 
clear to accommodating me.” 

''Ten thousand?” 

" Yes. Say five thousand down, and the balance 
within sixty days.” 

Magnus, for the moment blind to what Genslinger 
had in mind, turned on him in astonishment. 

" Why, man, what security could you give me for such 
an amount ? ” 

" Well, to tell the truth,” answered the editor, " I 
hadn’t thought much about securities. In fact, I believed 
you would see how greatly it was to your advantage to 
talk business with me. You see, I’m not going to print 
this article about you. Governor, and I’m not going to let 
it get out so as any one else can print it, and it seems to 
me that one good turn deserves another. You under- 
stand?” 

Magnus understood. An overwhelming desire sud- 
denly took possession of him to grip this blackmailer by 
the throat, to strangle him where he stood ; or, if not, at 
least to turn upon him with that old-time terrible anger, 
before which whole conventions had once cowered. But 
in the same moment the Governor realised this was not 


457 


A Story of California 

to be. Only its righteousness had made his wrath ter- 
rible ; only the justice of his anger had made him feared. 
Now the foundation was gone from under his feet; he 
had knocked it away himself. Three times feeble was 
he whose quarrel was unjust. Before this country editor, 
this paid speaker of the Railroad, he stood, convicted. 
The man had him at his mercy. The , detected briber 
could not resent an insult. Genslinger rose, smoothing 
his hat, 

Well,’^ he said, '' of course, you want time to think it 
over, and you can’t raise money like that on short notice. 
I’ll wait till Friday noon of this week. We begin to 
set Saturday’s paper at about four, Friday afternoon, 
and the forms are locked about two in the morning. I 
hope,” he added, turning back at the door of the room, 
that you won’t find anything disagreeable in your Sat- 
urday morning ^ Mercury,’ Mr. Derrick.” 

He went out, closing the door behind him, and in a 
moment, Magnus heard the wheels of his buckboard grat- 
ing on the driveway. 

The following morning brought a letter to Magnus 
from Gethings, of the San Pueblo ranch, which was situ- 
ated very close to Visalia. The letter was to the effect 
that all around Visalia, upon the ranches affected by the 
regrade of the Railroad, men were arming and drilling, 
and that the strength of the League in that quarter was 
undoubted. '' But to refer,” continued the letter, “ to a 
most painful recollection. You will, no doubt, remember 
that, at the close of our last committee meeting, specific 
charges were made as to fraud in the nomination and 
election of one of our commissioners, emanating, most 
unfortunately, from the commissioner himself. These 
charges, my dear Mr. Derrick, were directed at yourself. 
How the secrets of the committee have been noised about, 
I cannot understand. You may be, of course, assured of 


458 


The Octopus 


my own unquestioning confidence and loyalty. However, 
I regret exceedingly to state not only that the rumour of 
the charges referred to above is spreading in this district, 
but that also they are made use of by the enemies of the 
League. It is to be deplored that some of the Leaguers 
themselves — ^you know, we number in our ranks many 
small farmers, ignorant Portuguese and foreigners — have 
listened to these stories and have permitted a feeling of 
uneasiness to develop among them. Even though it were 
admitted that fraudulent means had been employed in the 
elections, which, of course, I personally do not admit, I 
do not think it would make very much difference in the 
confidence which the vast majority of the Leaguers repose 
in their chiefs. Yet we have so insisted upon the probity 
of our position as opposed to Railroad chicanery, that I 
believe it advisable to quell this distant suspicion at once ; 
to publish a denial of these rumoured charges would only 
be to give them too much importance. However, can you 
not write me a letter, stating exactly how the campaign 
was conducted, and the commission nominated and 
elected? I could show this to some of the more disaf- 
fected, and it would serve to allay all suspicion on the 
instant. I think it would be well to write as though the 
initiative came, not from me, but from yourself, ignoring 
this present letter. I offer this only as a suggestion, and 
will confidently endorse any decision you may arrive at.” 

The letter closed with renewed protestations of con- 
fidence. 

Magnus was alone when he read this. He put it care- 
fully away in the filing cabinet in his office, and wiped 
the sweat from his forehead and face. He stood for one 
moment, his hands rigid at his sides, his fists clinched. 

“ This is piling up,” he muttered, looking blankly at 
the opposite wall. ** My God, this is piling up. What am 
I to do?” 


459 


A Story of California 

Ah, the bitterness of unavailing regret, the anguish of 
compromise with conscience, the remorse of a bad deed 
done in a moment of excitement. Ah, the humiliation of 
detection, the degradation of being caught, caught like a 
schoolboy pilfering his fellows’ desks, and, worse than 
all, worse than all, the consciousness of lost self-respect, 
the knowledge of a prestige vanishing, a dignity im- 
paired, knowledge that the grip which held a multitude 
in check was trembling, that control was wavering, that 
command was being weakened. Then the little tricks to 
deceive the crowd, the little subterfuges, the little pre- 
tences that kept up appearances, the lies, the bluster, the 
pose, the strut, the gasconade, where once was iron au- 
thority; the turning of the head so as not to see that 
which could not be prevented ; the suspicion of suspicion, 
the haunting fear of the Man on the Street, the uneasi- 
ness of the direct glance, the questioning as to motives — 
why had this been said, what was meant by that word, 
that gesture, that glance? 

Wednesday passed, and Thursday. Magnus kept to 
himself, seeing no visitors, avoiding even his family. 
How to break through the mesh of the net, how to regain 
the old position, how to prevent discovery? If there were 
only some way, some vast, superhuman effort by which 
he could rise in his old strength once more, crushing 
Lyman with one hand, Genslinger with the other, and for 
one more moment, the last, to stand supreme again, in- 
domitable, the leader ; then go to his death, triumphant at 
the end, his memory untarnished, his fame undimmed. 
But the plague-spot was in himself, knitted forever into 
the fabric of his being. Though Genslinger should be si- 
lenced, though Lyman should be crushed, though even 
the League should overcome the Railroad, though he 
should be the acknowledged leader of a resplendent vic- 
tory, yet the plague-spot would remain. There was no 


460 


The Octopus 

success for him now. However conspicuous the outward 
achievement, he, he himself, Magnus Derrick, had failed, 
miserably and irredeemably. 

Petty, material complications intruded, sordid consid- 
erations. Even if Genslinger was to be paid, where was 
the money to come from ? His legal battles with the Rail- 
road, extending now over a period of many years, had 
cost him dear ; his plan of sowing all of Los Muertos to 
wheat, discharging the tenants, had proved expensive, the 
campaign resulting in Lyman’s election had drawn heav- 
ily upon his account. All along he had been relying upon 
a bonanza crop ” to reimburse him. It was not believ- 
able that the Railroad would ‘Vjump ” Los Muertos, but 
if this should happen, he would be left without re- 
sources. Ten thousand dollars! Could he raise the 
amount ? Possibly. But to pay it out to a blackmailer ! 
To be held up thus in road-agent fashion, without a sin- 
gle means of redress! Would it not cripple him finan- 
cially? Genslinger could do his worst. He, Magnus, 
would brave it out. Was not his character above sus- 
picion ? 

Was it? This letter of Gethings’s. Already the mur- 
mur of uneasiness made itself heard. Was this not the 
thin edge of the wedge? How the publication of Gen- 
slinger’s story would drive it home! How the spark of 
suspicion would flare into the blaze of open accusation ! 
There would be investigations. Investigation! There 
was terror in the word. He could not stand investiga- 
tion. Magnus groaned aloud, covering his head with his 
clasped hands. Briber, corrupter of government, ballot- 
box stuflfer, descending to the level of back-room politi- 
cians, of bar-room heelers, he, Magnus Derrick, statesman 
of the old school, Roman in his iron integrity, abandon- 
ing a career rather than enter the new politics,” had, in 
one moment of weakness, hazarding all, even honour, on 


A Story of California 461 

a single stake, taking great chances to achieve great re- 
sults, swept away the work of a lifetime. 

Gambler that he was, he had at last chanced his highest 
stake, his personal honour, in the greatest game of his 
life, and had lost. 

It was Presley’s morbidly keen observation that first 
noticed the evidence of a new trouble in the Governor’s 
face and manner. Presley was sure that Lyman’s defec- 
tion had not so upset him. The morning after the com- 
mittee meeting, Magnus had called Harran and Annie 
Derrick into the office, and, after telling his wife of Ly- 
man’s betrayal, had forbidden either of them to mention 
his name again. His attitude towards his prodigal son 
was that of stern, unrelenting resentment. But now, 
Presley could not fail to detect traces of a more deep- 
seated travail. Something was in the wind. The times 
were troublous. What next was about to happen ? What 
fresh calamity impended ? 

One morning, toward the very end of the week, Pres- 
ley woke early in his small, white-painted iron bed. He 
hastened to get up and dress. There was much to be 
done that day. Until late the night before, he had been 
at work on a collection of some of his verses, gathered 
from the magazines in which they had first appeared. 
Presley had received a liberal offer for the publication of 
these verses in book form. “ The Toilers ” was to be 
included in this book, and, indeed, was to give it its name 
— '' The Toilers and Other Poems.” Thus it was that, 
until the previous midnight, he had been preparing the 
collection for publication, revising, annotating, arranging. 
The book was to be sent off that morning. 

But also Presley had received a typewritten note from 
Annixter, inviting him to Quien Sabe that same day. 
Annixter explained that it was Hilma’s birthday, and 
that he had planned a picnic on the high ground of his 


462 


The Octopus 


ranch, at the headwaters of Broderson Creek. They were 
to go in the carry-all, Hilma, Presley, Mrs. Dyke, Sidney, 
and himself, and were to make a day of it. They would 
leave Quien Sabe at ten in the morning. Presley had at 
once resolved to go. He was immensely fond of Annix- 
ter — ^more so than ever since his marriage with Hilma 
and the astonishing transformation of his character. 
Hilma, as well, was delightful as Mrs. Annixter; and 
Mrs. Dyke and the little tad had always been his friends. 
He would have a good time. 

But nobody was to go into Bonneville that morning 
with the mail, and if he wished to send his manuscript, 
he would have to take it in himself. He had resolved to 
do this, getting an early start, and going on horseback 
to Quien Sabe, by way of Bonneville. 

It was barely six o’clock when Presley sat down to 
his coffee and eggs in the dining-room of Los Muertos. 
The day promised to be hot, and for the first time, Pres- 
ley had put on a new khaki riding suit, very English- 
looking, though in place of the regulation top-boots, he 
wore his laced knee-boots, with a great spur on the left 
heel. Harran joined him at breakfast, in his working 
clothes of blue canvas. He was bound for the irrigating 
ditch to see how the work w'as getting on there. 

How is the wheat looking? ” asked Presley. 

Bully,” answered the other, stirring his coffee. The 
Governor has had his ususal luck. Practically, every acre 
of the ranch was sown to wheat, and everywhere the 
stand is good. I was over on Two, day before yesterday, 
and if nothing happens, I believe it will go thirty sacks to 
the acre there. Cutter reports that there are spots on 
Four where we will get forty-two or three. Hooven, too, 
brought up some wonderful fine ears for me to look at. 
The grains were just beginning to show. Some of the 
ears carried twenty grains. That means nearly forty 


A Story of California 463 

bushels of wheat to every acre. I call it a bonanza 
year.’’ 

“ Have you got any mail ? ” said Presley, rising. I’m 
going into town.” 

Harran shook his head, and took himself away, and 
Presley went down to the stable-corral to get his pony. 

As he rode out of the stable-yard and passed by the 
ranch house, on the driveway, he was surprised to see 
Magnus on the lowest step of the porch. 

“ Good morning, Governor,” called Presley. Aren’t 
you up pretty early?” 

“ Good morning. Pres, my boy.” The Governor came 
forward and, putting his hand on the pony’s withers, 
walked along by his side. 

''Going to town. Pres?” he asked. 

" Yes, sir. Can I do anything for you. Governor?” 

Magnus drew a sealed envelope from his pocket. 

" I wish you would drop in at the office of the Mercury 
for me,” he said, " and see Mr. Genslinger personally, and 
give him this envelope. It is a package of papers, but 
they involve a considerable sum of money, and you must 
be careful of them. A few years ago, when our enmity 
was not so strong, Mr. Genslinger and I had some busi- 
ness dealings with each other. I thought it as well just 
now, considering that we are so openly opposed, to ter- 
minate the whole affair, and break off relations. We 
came to a settlement a few days ago. These are the 
final papers. They must be given to him in person, Pres- 
ley. You understand.” 

Presley cantered on, turning into the county road, 
and holding northward by the mammoth watering tank 
and Broderson’s popular windbreak. As he passed Cara- 
her’s, he saw the saloon-keeper in the doorway of his place, 
and waved him a salutation which the other returned. 

By degrees, Presley had come to consider Caraher in 


464 


The Octopus 


a more favourable light. He found, to his immense aston- 
ishment, that Caraher knew something of Mill and Ba- 
kounin, not, however, from their books, but from ex- 
tracts and quotations from their writings, reprinted in the 
anarchistic journals to which he subscribed. More than 
once, the two had held long conversations, and from 
Caraher’s own lips, Presley heard the terrible story of the 
death of his wife, who had been accidentally killed by 
Pinkertons during a '' demonstration of strikers. It 
invested the saloon-keeper, in Presley’s imagination, with 
all the dignity of the tragedy. He could not blame 
Caraher for being a red.” He even wondered how it 
was the saloon-keeper had not put his theories into prac- 
tice, and adjusted his ancient wrong with his six inches 
of plugged gas-pipe.” Presley began to conceive of the 
man as a “ character.” 

You wait, Mr. Presley,” the saloon-keeper had once 
said, when Presley had protested against his radical ideas. 
‘‘ You don’t know the Railroad yet. Watch it and its 
doings long enough, and you’ll come over to my way of 
thinking, too.” 

It was about half-past seven when Presley reached 
Bonneville. The business part of the town was as yet 
hardly astir ; he despatched his manuscript, and then hur- 
ried to the office of the “ Mercury.” Genslinger, as he 
feared, had not yet put in appearance, but the janitor of 
the building gave Presley the address of the editor’s 
residence, and it was there he found him in the act of 
sitting down to breakfast. Presley was hardly courteous 
to the little man, and abruptly refused his offer of a drink. 
He delivered Magnus’s envelope to him and departed. 

It had occurred to him that it would not do to present 
himself at Quien Sabe on Hilma’s birthday, empty^ 
handed, and, on leaving Genslinger’s house, he turned 
his pony’s head toward the business part of the town 


A Story of California 465 

again pulling up in front of the jeweller’s, just as the clerk 
was taking down the shutters. 

At the jeweller’s, he purchased a little brooch for Hilma, 
and at the cigar stand in the lobby of the Yosemite 
House, a box of superfine cigars, which, when it was too 
late, he realised that the master of Quien Sabe would 
never smoke, holding, as he did, with defiant inconsis- 
tency, to miserable weeds, black, bitter, and flagrantly 
doctored, which he bought, three for a nickel, at 
Guadalajara. 

Presley arrived at Quien Sabe nearly half an hour be- 
hind the appointed time; but, as he had expected, the 
party were in no way ready to start. The carry-all, its 
horses covered with white fly-nets, stood under a tree 
near the house, young Vacca dozing on the seat. Hilma 
and Sidney, the latter exuberant with a gayety that all but 
brought the tears to Presley’s eyes, were making sand- 
wiches on the back porch. Mrs. Dyke was nowhere to be 
seen, and Annixter was shaving himself in his bedroom. 

This latter put a half-lathered face out of the window 
as Presley cantered through the gate, and waved his 
razor with a beckoning motion. 

“ Come on in. Pres,” he cried. '' Nobody’s ready yet. 
You’re hours ahead of time.” 

Presley came into the bedroom, his huge spur clinking 
on the straw matting. Annixter was without coat, vest, 
or collar, his blue silk suspenders hung in loops over 
either hip, his hair was disordered, the crown lock stiffer 
than ever. 

Glad to see you, old boy,” he announced, as Presley 
came in. No, don’t shake hands. Pm all lather. Here, 
find a chair, will you ? I won’t be long.” 

“ I thought you said ten o’clock,” observed Presley, 
sitting down on the edge of the bed. 

Well, I did, but ” 

30 


466 The Octopus 

But, then again, in a way, you didn’t, hey ? ” his 
friend interrupted. 

Annixter grunted good-humouredly, and turned to 
strop his razor. Presley looked with suspicious disfa- 
vour at his suspenders. 

‘‘ Why is it,” he observed, “ that as soon as a man is 
about to get married, he buys himself pale blue sus- 
penders, silk ones? Think of it. You, Buck Annixter, 
with sky-blue, silk suspenders. It ought to be a strap 
and a nail.” 

'' Old fool,” observed Annixter, whose repartee was the 
heaving of brick bats. Say,” he continued, holding the 
razor from his face, and jerking his head over his 
shoulder, while he looked at Presley’s reflection in his 
mirror; say, look around. Isn’t this a nifty little room? 
We refitted the whole house, you know. Notice she’s all 
painted ? ” 

I have been looking around,” answered Presley, 
sweeping the room with a series of glances. He forebore 
criticism. Annixter was so boyishly proud of the effect 
that it would have been unkind to have undeceived him. 
Presley looked at the marvellous, department-store bed 
of brass, with its brave, gay canopy ; the mill-made wash- 
stand, with its pitcher and bowl of blinding red and green 
china, the straw-framed lithographs of symbolic female 
figures against the multi-coloured, new wall-paper; the 
inadequate spindle chairs of white and gold ; the sphere of 
tissue paper hanging from the gas fixture, and the plumes 
of pampas grass tacked to the wall at artistic angles, and 
overhanging two astonishing oil paintings, in dazzling 
golden frames. 

'' Say, how about those paintings. Pres ? ” inquired An- 
nixter a little uneasily. I don’t know whether they’re 
good or not. They were painted by a three-fingered 
Chinaman in Monterey, and I got the lot for thirty 


A Story of California 467 

dollars, frames thrown in. Why, I think the frames alone 
are worth thirty dollars.’^ 

'^Well, so do declared Presley. He hastened to 
change the subject. 

“ Buck,’^ he said, I hear youVe brought Mrs. Dyke 
and Sidney to live with you. You know, I think thafs 
rather white of you.^' 

“ Oh, rot, Pres,’^ muttered Annixter, turning abruptly 
to his shaving. 

“ And you can’t fool me, either, old man,” Presley con- 
tinued. “ You’re giving this picnic as much for Mrs. 
Dyke and the little tad as you are for your wife, just to 
cheer them up a bit.” 

“ Oh, pshaw, you make me sick.” 

“ Well, that’s the right thing to do. Buck, and I’m as 
glad for your sake as I am for theirs. There was a time 
when you would have let them all go to grass, and never 
so much as thought of them. I don’t want to seem to be 
officious, but you’ve changed for the better, old man, 
and I guess I know why. She — ” Presley caught his 
friend’s eye, and added gravely, She’s a good woman. 
Buck.” 

Annixter turned around abruptly, his face flushing 
under its lather. 

“ Pres,” he exclaimed, “ she’s made a man of me. I 
was a machine before, and if another man, or woman, or 
child got in my way, I rode ’em down, and I never 
dreamed of anybody else but myself. But as soon as I 
woke up to the fact that I really loved her, why, it was 
glory hallelujah all in a minute, and, in a way, I kind of 
loved everybody then, and wanted to be everybody’s 
friend. And I began to see that a fellow can’t live for 
himself any more than he can live hy himself. He’s got 
to think of others. If he’s got brains, he’s got to think 
for the poor ducks that haven’t ’em, and not give ’em a 


468 


The Octopus 


boot in the backsides because they happen to be stupid ; 
and if he’s got money, he’s got to help those that are 
busted, and if he’s got a house, he’s got to think of those 
that ain’t got anywhere to go. I’ve got a whole lot of 
ideas since I began to love Hilma, and just as soon as I 
can. I’m going to get in and help people, and I’m going 
to keep to that idea the rest of my natural life. That 
ain’t much of a religion, but it’s the best I’ve got, and 
Henry Ward Beecher couldn’t do any more than that. 
And it’s all come about because of Hilma, and because 
we cared for each other.” 

Presley jumped up, and caught Annixter about the 
shoulders with one arm, gripping his hand hard. This 
absurd figure, with dangling silk suspenders, lathered 
chin, and tearful eyes, seemed to be suddenly invested 
with true nobility. Beside this blundering struggle to do 
right, to help his fellows, Presley’s own vague schemes, 
glittering systems of reconstruction, collapsed to ruin, 
and he himself, with all his refinement, with all his 
poetry, culture, and education, stood, a bungler at the 
world’s workbench. 

“You’re all right, old man,” he exclaimed, unable to 
think of anything adequate. “ You’re all right. That’s 
the way to talk, and here, by the way, I brought you a 
box of cigars.” 

Annixter stared as Presley laid the box on the edge of 
the washstand. 

“ Old fool,” he remarked, “ what in hell did you do 
that for? ” 

“ Oh, just for fun.” 

“ I suppose they’re rotten stinkodoras, or you wouldn’t 
give ’em away.” 

“This cringing gratitude — ” Presley began. 

“ Shut up,” shouted Annixter, and the incident was 
closed. 


A Story of California 469 

Annixter resumed his shaving, and Presley lit a 
cigarette. 

Any news from Washington ? ’’ he queried. 

** Nothing that’s any good,” grunted Annixter. 
“ Hello,” he added, raising his head, there’s somebody 
in a hurry for sure.” 

The noise of a horse galloping so fast that the hoof- 
beats sounded in one uninterrupted rattle, abruptly made 
itself heard. The noise was coming from the direction of 
the road that led from the Mission to Quien Sabe. With 
incredible swiftness, the hoof-beats drew nearer. There 
was that in their sound which brought Presley to his feet. 
Annixter threw open the window. 

Runaway,” exclaimed Presley. 

Annixter, with thoughts of the Railroad, and the 
“jumping” of the ranch, flung his hand to his hip 
pocket. 

“ What is it, Vacca ? ” he cried. 

Young Vacca, turning in his seat in the carryall, was 
looking up the road. All at once, he jumped from his 
place, and dashed towards the window. 

“ Dyke,” he shouted. “ Dyke, it’s Dyke.” 

While the words were yet in his mouth, the sound of 
the hoof-beats rose to a roar, and a great, bell-toned voice 
shouted : 

“ Annixter, Annixter, Annixter ! ” 

It was Dyke’s voice, and the next instant he shot into 
view in the open square in front of the house. 

“ Oh, my God ! ” cried Presley. 

The ex-engineer threw the horse on its haunches, 
springing from the saddle; and, as he did so, the beast 
collapsed, shuddering, to the ground. Annixter sprang 
from the window, and ran forward, Presley following. 

There was Dyke, hatless, his pistol in his hand, a 
gaunt, terrible figure, the beard immeasurably long, the 


470 


The Octopus 


cheeks fallen in, the eyes sunken. His clothes ripped and 
torn by weeks of flight and hiding in the chaparral, were 
ragged beyond words, the boots were shreds of leather, 
bloody to the ankle with furious spurring. 

^‘Annixter,” he shouted, and again, rolling his sunken 
eyes, “ Annixter, Annixter ! ’’ 

Here, here,” cried Annixter. 

The other turned, levelling his pistol. 

“ Give me a horse, give me a horse, quick, do you 
hear? Give me a horse, or I’ll shoot.” 

'' Steady, steady. That won’t do. You know me. 
Dyke. We’re friends here.” 

The other lowered his weapon. 

“ I know, I know,” he panted. I’d forgotten. I’m 
unstrung, Mr. Annixter, and I’m running for my life. 
They’re not ten minutes behind me.” 

'' Come on, come on,” shouted Annixter, dashing 
stablewards, his suspenders flying. 

''Here’s a horse.” 

" Mine ? ” exclaimed Presley. " He wouldn’t carry 
you a mile.” 

Annixter was already far ahead, trumpeting orders. 

" The buckskin,” he yelled. " Get her out, Billy. 
Where’s the stable-man? Get out that buckskin. Get 
out that saddle.” 

Then followed minutes of furious haste, Presley, An- 
nixter, Billy the stable-man, and Dyke himself, darting 
hither and thither about the yellow mare, buckling, strap- 
ping, cinching, their lips pale, their fingers trembling with 
excitement. 

" Want anything to eat? ” Annixter ’s head was under 
the saddle flap as he tore at the cinch. " Want anything 
to eat? Want any money? Want a gun? ” 

" Water,” returned Dyke. " They’ve watched every 
spring. I’m killed with thirst.” 


471 


A Story of California 

‘‘ There’s the hydrant. Quick now.” 

I got as far as the Kern River, but they turned me 
back,’' he said between breaths as he drank. 

Don’t stop to talk.” 

My mother, and the little tad ” 

I’m taking care of them. They’re stopping with me.” 

Here?” 

‘‘You won’t see ’em; by the Lord, you won’t. You’ll 
get away. Where’s that back cinch strap, Billy? God 
damn it, are you going to let him be shot before he can 
get away? Now, Dyke, up you go. She’ll kill herself 
running before they can catch you.” 

“God bless you, Annixter. Where’s the little tad? 
Is she well, Annixter, and the mother? Tell them ” 

“Yes, yes, yes. All clear. Pres? Let her have her 
own gait, Dyke. You’re on the best horse in the county 
now. Let go her head, Billy. Now, Dyke, — shake hands ? 
Vou bet I will. That’s all right. Yes, God bless you. 
Let her go. You’re off?' 

Answering the goad of the spur, and already quivering 
with the excitement of the men who surrounded her, the 
buckskin cleared the stable-corral in two leaps ; then, 
gathering her legs under her, her head low, her neck 
stretched out, swung into the road from out the driveway, 
disappearing in a blur of dust. 

With the agility of a monkey, young Vacca swung 
himself into the framework of the artesian well, clamber- 
ing aloft to its very top. He swept the country with a 
glance. 

“ W ell ? ” demanded Annixter from the ground. The 
others cocked their heads to listen. 

“ I see him ; I see him ! ” shouted Vacca. “ He’s going 
like the devil. He’s headed for Guadalajara.” 

“ Look back, up the road, toward the Mission. Any- 
thing there ? ” 


472 


The Octopus 


The answer came down in a shout of apprehension. 

“ There’s a party of men. Three or four — on horse- 
back. There’s dogs with ’em. They’re coming this way. 
Oh, I can hear the dogs. And, say, oh, say, there’s an- 
other party coming down the Lower Road, going towards 
Guadalajara, too. They got guns. I can see the shine of 
the barrels. And, oh. Lord, say, there’s three more men 
on horses coming down on the jump from the hills on the 
Los Muertos stock range. They’re making towards 
Guadalajara. And I can hear the courthouse bell in 
Bonneville ringing. Say, the whole county is up.” 

As young Vacca slid down to the ground, two small 
black-and-tan hounds, with flapping ears and lolling 
tongues, loped into view on the road in front of the house. 
They were grey with dust, their noses were to th^ 
ground. At the gate where Dyke had turned into the 
ranch house grounds, they halted in confusion a mo« 
ment. One started to follow the highwayman’s trail to- 
wards the stable corral, but the other, quartering over 
the road with lightning swiftness, suddenly picked up the 
new scent leading on towards Guadalajara. He tossed 
his head in the air, and Presley abruptly shut his hands 
over his ears. 

Ah, that terrible cry! deep-toned, reverberating like 
the bourdon of a great bell. It was the trackers exult- 
ing on the trail of the pursued, the prolonged, raucous 
howl, eager, ominous, vibrating with the alarm of the 
tocsin, sullen with the heavy muffling note of death. But 
close upon the bay of the hounds, came the gallop of 
horses. Five men, their eyes upon the hounds, their 
rifles across their pommels, their horses reeking and black 
with sweat, swept by in a storm of dust, glinting hoofs, 
and streaming manes. 

'' That was Delaney’s gang,” exclaimed Annixter. ** I 
saw him.” 


473 


A Story of California 

The other was that chap Christian,” said Vacca, “ S. 
Behrman's cousin. He had two deputies with him ; and 
the chap in the white slouch hat was the sheriff from 
Visalia.” 

By the Lord, they aren't far behind,” declared An- 
nixter. 

As the men turned towards the house again they saw 
Hilma and Mrs. Dyke in the doorway of the little house 
where the latter lived. They were looking out, bewil- 
dered, ignorant of what had happened. But on the porch 
of the Ranch house itself, alone, forgotten in the excite- 
ment, Sidney — the little tad — stood, with pale face and 
serious, wide-open eyes. She had seen everything, and 
had understood. She said nothing. Her head inclined 
towards the roadway, she listened to the faint and distant 
baying of the dogs. 

Dyke thundered across the railway tracks by the depot 
at Guadalajara not five minutes ahead of his pursuers. 
Luck seemed to have deserted him. The station, usually 
so quiet, was now occupied by the crew of a freight train 
that lay on the down track ; while on the up line, near at 
hand and headed in the same direction, was a detached 
locomotive, whose engineer and fireman recognized him, 
he was sure, as the buckskin leaped across the rails. 

He had had no time to formulate a plan since that 
morning, when, tortured with thirst, he had ventured near 
the spring at the headwaters of Broderson Creek, on 
Quien Sabe, and had all but fallen into the hands of the 
posse that had been watching for that very move. It was 
useless now to regret that he had tried to foil pursuit by 
turning back on his tracks to regain the mountains east 
of Bonneville. Now Delaney was almost on him. To 
distance that posse, was the only thing to be thought of 
now. It was no longer a question of hiding till pursuit 
should flag; they had driven him out from the shelter of 


474 


The Octopus 


the mountains, down into this populous countryside, 
where an enemy might be met with at every turn of the 
road. Now it was life or death. He would either escape 
or be killed. He knew very well that he would never 
allow himself to be taken alive. But he had no mind to 
be killed — to turn and fight — till escape was blocked. His 
one thought was to leave pursuit behind. 

Weeks of flight had sharpened Dyke's every sense. As 
he turned into the Upper Road beyond Guadalajara, he 
saw the three men galloping down from Derrick's stock 
range, making for the road ahead of him. They would 
cut him off there. He swung the buckskin about. He 
must take the Lower Road across Los Muertos from 
Guadalajara, and he must reach it before Delaney's dogs 
and posse. Back he galloped, the buckskin measuring 
her length with every leap. Once more the station came 
in sight. Rising in his stirrups, he looked across the 
fields in the direction of the Lower Road. There was a 
cloud of dust there. From a wagon? No, horses on the 
run, and their riders were armed! He could catch the 
flash of gun barrels. They were all closing in on him, 
converging on Guadalajara by every available road. The 
Upper Road west of Guadalajara led straight to Bonne- 
ville. That way was impossible. Was he in a trap? Had 
the time for fighting come at last ? 

But as Dyke neared the depot at Guadalajara, his eye 
fell upon the detached locomotive that lay quietly steam- 
ing on the up line, and with a thrill of exultation, he 
remembered that he was an engineer born and bred. 
Delaney's dogs were already to be heard, and the roll of 
hoofs on the Lower Road was dinning in his ears, as he 
leaped from the buckskin before the depot. The train 
crew scattered like frightened sheep before him, but Dyke 
ignored them. His pistol was in his hand as, once more 
on foot, he sprang toward the lone engine. 


A Story of California 475 

** Out of the cab,” he shouted. '' Both of you. Quick, 
or ril kill you both.” 

The two men tumbled from the iron apron of the 
tender as Dyke swung himself up, dropping his pistol on 
the floor of the cab and reaching with the old instinct for 
the familiar levers. 

The great compound hissed and trembled as the steam 
was released, and the huge drivers stirred, turning slowly 
on the tracks. But there was a shout. Delaney’s posse, 
dogs and men, swung into view at the turn of the road, 
their figures leaning over as they took the curve at 
full speed. Dyke threw everything wide open and caught 
up his revolver. From behind came the challenge of a 
Winchester. The party on the Lower Road were even 
closer than Delaney. They had seen his manoeuvre, and 
the first shot of the fight shivered the cab windows above 
the engineer’s head. 

But spinning futilely at first, the drivers of the engine 
at last caught the rails. The engine moved, advanced, 
travelled past the depot and the freight train, and gather- 
ing speed, rolled out on the track beyond. Smoke, black 
and boiling, shot skyward from the stack; not a joint 
that did not shudder with the mighty strain of the steam ; 
but the great iron brute — one of Baldwin’s newest and 
best — came to call, obedient and docile as soon as ever 
the great pulsing heart of it felt a master hand upon its 
levers. It gathered its speed, bracing its steel muscles, 
its thews of iron, and roared out upon the open track, 
filling the air with the rasp of its tempest-breath, blot- 
ting the sunshine with the belch of its hot, thick smoke. 
Already it was lessening in the distance, when Delaney, 
Christian, and the sheriff of Visalia dashed up to the 
station. 

The posse had seen everything. 

** Stuck. Curse the luck ! ” vociferated the cow-punchen 


476 The Octopus 

But the sheriff was already out of the saddle and into 
the telegraph office. 

There’s a derailing switch between here and Pixley, 
isn’t there?” he cried. 

Yes.” 

Wire ahead to open it. We’ll derail him there. Come 
on ; ” he turned to Delaney and the others. They sprang 
into the cab of the locomotive that was attached to the 
freight train. 

'' Name of the State of California,” shouted the sheriff 
to the bewildered engineer. Cut off from your train.” 

The sheriff was a man to be obeyed without hesitating. 
Time was not allowed the crew of the freight train for 
debating as to the right or the wrong of requisitioning 
the engine, and before anyone thought of the safety or 
danger of the affair, the freight engine was already flying 
out upon the down line, hot in pursuit of Dyke, now far 
ahead upon the up track. 

I remember perfectly well there’s a derailing switch 
between here and Pixley,” shouted the sheriff above the 
roar of the locomotive. They use it in case they have to 
derail runaway engines. It runs right off into the coun- 
try. We’ll pile him up there. Ready with your guns, 
boys.” 

'' If we should meet another train coming up on this 
track ” protested the frightened engineer. 

“Then we’d jump or be smashed. Hi! look! There 
he is.” As the freight engine rounded a curve. Dyke’s 
engine came into view, shooting on some quarter of a 
mile ahead of them, wreathed in whirling smoke. 

“The switch ain’t much further on,” clamoured the 
engineer. “ You can see Pixley now.” ^ 

Dyke, his hand on the grip of the valve that controlled 
the steam, his head out of the cab window, thundered on. 
He was back in his old place again; once more he was the 


477 


A Story of California 

engineer ; once more he felt the engine quiver under him ; 
the familiar noises were in his ears ; the familiar buffeting 
of the wind surged, roaring at his face; the familiar 
odours of hot steam and smoke reeked in his nostrils, 
and on either side of him, parallel panoramas, the two 
halves of the landscape sliced, as it were, in two by the 
clashing wheels of his engine, streamed by in green and 
brown blurs. 

He found himself settling to the old position on the 
cab seat, leaning on his elbow from the window, one hand 
on the controller. All at once, the instinct of the pursuit 
that of late had become so strong within him, prompted 
him to shoot a glance behind. He saw the other engine 
on the down line, plunging after him, rocking from side 
to side with the fury of its gallop. Not yet had he shaken 
the trackers from his heels; not yet was he out of the 
reach of danger. He set his teeth and, throwing open the 
fire-door, stoked vigorously for a few moments. The in- 
dicator of the steam gauge rose; his speed increased; a 
glance at the telegraph poles told him he was doing his 
fifty miles an hour. The freight engine behind him was 
never built for that pace. Barring the terrible risk of 
accident, his chances were good. 

But suddenly — the engineer dominating the highway- 
man — he shut off his steam and threw back his brake to 
the extreme notch. Directly ahead of him rose a sema- 
phore, placed at a point where evidently a derailing switch 
branched from the line. The semaphore's arm was 
dropped over the track, setting the danger signal that 
showed the switch was open. 

In an instant. Dyke saw the trick. They had meant to 
smash him here; had been clever enough, quick-witted 
enough to open the switch, but had forgotten the auto- 
matic semaphore that worked simultaneously with the 
movement of the rails. To go forward was certain de- 


478 


The Octopus 

struction. Dyke reversed. There was nothing for it but 
to go back. With a wrench and a spasm of all its metal 
fibres, the great compound braced itself, sliding with rigid 
wheels along the rails. Then, as Dyke applied the re- 
verse, it drew back from the greater danger, returning 
towards the less. Inevitably now the two engines, one on 
the up, the other on the down line, must meet and pass 
each other. 

Dyke released the levers, reaching for his revolver. 
The engineer once more became the highwayman, in 
peril of his life. Now, beyond all doubt, the time for 
fighting was at hand. 

The party in the heavy freight engine, that lumbered 
after in pursuit, their eyes fixed on the smudge of smoke 
on ahead that marked the path of the fugitive, suddenly 
raised a shout. 

He’s stopped. He’s broke down. Watch, now, and 
see if he jumps off.’' 

Broke nothing. He^s coming back. Ready, now, he’s 
got to pass us.” 

The engineer applied the brakes, but the heavy freight 
locomotive, far less mobile than Dyke’s flyer, was slow to 
obey. The smudge on the rails ahead grew swiftly 
larger. 

He’s coming. He’s coming — look out, there’s a shot. 
He’s shooting already.” 

A bright, white sliver of wood leaped into the air from 
the sooty window sill of the cab. 

“ Fire on him ! Fire on him 1 ” 

While the engines were yet two hundred yards apart, 
the duel began, shot answering shot, the sharp staccato 
reports punctuating the thunder of wheels and the 
clamour of steam. 

Then the ground trembled and rocked; a roar as of 
heavy ordnance developed with the abruptness of an ex- 


479 


A Story of California 

plosion. The two engines passed each other, the men 
firing the while, emptying their revolvers, shattering 
wood, shivering glass, the bullets clanging against the 
metal work as they struck and struck and struck. The 
men leaned from the cabs towards each other, frantic 
with excitement, shouting curses, the engines rocking, 
the steam roaring; confusion whirling in the scene like 
the whirl of a witch’s dance, the white clouds of steam, 
the black eddies from the smokestack, the blue wreaths 
from the hot mouths of revolvers, swirling together in a 
blinding maze of vapour, spinning around them, dazing 
them, dizzying them, while the head rang with hideous 
clamour and the body twitched and trembled with the 
leap and jar of the tumult of machinery. 

Roaring, clamouring, reeking with the smell of pow- 
der and hot oil, spitting death, resistless, huge, furious, 
an abrupt vision of chaos, faces, rage-distorted, peering 
through smoke, hands gripping outward from sudden 
darkness, prehensile, malevolent ; terrible as thunder, 
swift as lightning, the two engines met and passed. 

He’s hit,” cried Delaney. I know I hit him. He 
can’t go far now. After him again. He won’t dare go 
through Bonneville.’' 

It was true. Dyke had stood between cab and tender 
throughout all the duel, exposed, reckless, thinking only 
of attack and not of defence, and a bullet from one of the 
pistols had grazed his hip. How serious was the wound 
he did not know, but he had no thought of giving up. He 
tore back through the depot at Guadalajara in a storm 
of bullets, and, clinging to the broken window ledge of 
his cab, was carried towards Bonneville, on over the Long 
Trestle and Broderson Creek and through the open coun- 
try between the two ranches of Los Muertos and Quien 
Sabe. 

But to go on to Bonneville meant certain death. Be- 


480 


The Octopus 

fore, as well as behind him, the roads were now blocked. 
Once more he thought of the mountains. He resolved to 
abandon the engine and make another final attempt to get 
into the shelter of the hills in the northernmost corner of 
Quien Sabe. He set his teeth. He would not give in. 
There was one more fight left in him yet. Now to try 
the final hope. 

He slowed the engine down, and, reloading his re- 
volver, jumped from the platform to the road. He looked 
about him, listening. All around him widened an ocean 
of wheat. There was no one in sight. 

The released engine, alone, unattended, drew slowly 
away from him, jolting ponderously over the rail joints. 
As he watched it go, a certain indefinite sense of aban- 
donment, even in that moment, came over Dyke. His last 
friend, that also had been his first, was leaving him. He 
remembered that day, long ago, when he had opened the 
throttle of his first machine. To-day, it was leaving him 
alone, his last friend turning against him. Slowly it was 
going back towards Bonneville, to the shops of the Rail- 
road, the camp of the enemy, that enemy that had ruined 
him and wrecked him. For the last time in his life, he 
had been the engineer. Now, once more, he became the 
highwayman, the outlaw against whom all hands were 
raised, the fugitive skulking in the mountains, listening 
for the cry of dogs. 

But he would not give in. They had not broken him 
yet. Never, while he could fight, would he allow S. Behr- 
man the triumph of his capture. 

He found his wound was not bad. He plunged into the 
wheat on Quien Sabe, making northward for a division 
house that rose with its surrounding trees out of the 
wheat like an island. He reached it, the blood squelching 
in his shoes. But the sight of two men, Portuguese 
farm-hands, staring at him from an angle of the bam, 


A Story of California 481 

abruptly roused him to action. He sprang forward with 
peremptory commands, demanding a horse. 

At Guadalajara, Delaney and the sheriff descended 
from the freight engine. 

“ Horses now,” declared the sheriff. He won't go 
into Bonneville, that's certain. He’ll leave the engine be- 
tween here and there, and strike off into the country. 
We'll follow after him now in the saddle. Soon as he 
leaves his engine, he's on foot. We've as good as got 
him now.” 

Their horses, including even the buckskin mare that 
Dyke had ridden, were still at the station. The party 
swung themselves up, Delaney exclaiming, Here’s my 
mount,” as he bestrode the buckskin. 

At Guadalajara, the two bloodhounds were picked up 
again. Urging the jaded horses to a gallop, the party set 
off along the Upper Road, keeping a sharp lookout to 
right and left for traces of Dyke's abandonment of the 
engine. 

Three miles beyond the Long Trestle, they found S. 
Behrman holding his saddle horse by the bridle, and look- 
ing attentively at a trail that had been broken through 
the standing wheat on Quien Sabe. The party drew rein. 

The engine passed me on the tracks further up, and 
empty,” said S. Behrman. '' Boys, I think he left her 
here.” 

But before anyone could answer, the bloodhounds 
gave tongue again, as they picked up the scent. 

'' That's him,” cried S. Behrman. “ Get on, boys.” 

They dashed forward, following the hounds. S. Behr- 
man laboriously climbed to his saddle, panting, perspiring, 
mopping the roll of fat over his coat collar, and turned in 
after them, trotting along far in the rear, his great 
stomach and tremulous jowl shaking with the horse's 
gait. 


482 


The Octopus 


What a da.y” he murmured. '' What a day.” 

Dyke’s trail was fresh, and was followed as easily as if 
made on new-fallen snow. In a short time, the posse 
swept into the open space around the division house. The 
two Portuguese were still there, wide-eyed, terribly ex- 
cited. 

Yes, yes, Dyke had been there not half an hour since, 
had held them up, taken a horse and galloped to the 
northeast, towards the foothills at the headwaters of 
Broderson Creek. 

On again, at full gallop, through the young wheat, 
trampling it under the flying hoofs ; the hounds hot on 
the scent, baying continually ; the men, on fresh mounts, 
secured at the division house, bending forward in their 
saddles, spurring relentlessly. S. Behrman jolted along 
far in the rear. 

And even then, harried through an open country, 
where there was no place to hide, it was a matter of 
amazement how long a chase the highwayman led them. 
Fences were passed ; fences whose barbed wire had been 
slashed apart by the fugitive’s knife. The ground rose 
under foot ; the hills were at hand ; still the pursuit held 
on. The sun, long past the meridian, began to turn 
earthward. Would night come on before they were up 
with him? 

Look ! Look ! There he is ! Quick, there he goes ! 

High on the bare slope of the nearest hill, all the posse, 
looking in the direction of Delaney’s gesture, saw the 
figure of a horseman emerge from an arroyo, filled with 
chaparral, and struggle at a labouring gallop straight up 
the slope. Suddenly, every member of the party shouted 
aloud. The horse had fallen, pitching the rider from the 
saddle. The man rose to his feet, caught at the bridle, 
missed it and the horse dashed on alone. The man, 
pausing for a second, looked around, saw the chase draw* 


A Story of California 483 

ing nearer, then, turning back, disappeared in the chapar- 
ral. Delaney raised a great whoop. 

WeVe got you now.” 

Into the slopes and valleys of the hills dashed the band 
of horsemen, the trail now so fresh that it could be easily 
discerned by all. On and on it led them, a furious, wild 
scramble straight up the slopes. The minutes went by. 
The dry bed of a rivulet was passed ; then another fence ; 
then a tangle of manzanita ; a meadow of wild oats, full 
of agitated cattle; then an arroyo, thl:k with chaparral 
and scrub oaks, and then, without warning, the pistol 
shots ripped out and ran from rider to rider with the 
rapidity of a gatling discharge, and one of the deputies 
bent forward in the saddle, both hands to his face, the 
blood jetting from between his fingers. 

Dyke was there, at bay at last, his back against a bank 
of rock, the roots of a fallen tree serving him as a ram- 
part, his revolver smoking in his hand. 

You’re under arrest. Dyke,” cried the sheriff. It’s 
not the least use to fight. The whole country is up.” 

Dyke fired again, the shot splintering the foreleg of 
the horse the sheriff rode. 

The posse, four men all told — the wounded deputy 
having crawled out of the fight after Dyke’s first shot — 
fell back after the preliminary fusillade, dismounted, and 
took shelter behind rocks and trees. On that rugged 
ground, fighting from the saddle was impracticable. 
Dyke, in the meanwhile, held his fire, for he knew that, 
once his pistol was empty, he would never be allowed 
time to reload. 

Dyke,” called the sheriff again, “ for the last time, I 
summon you to surrender.” 

Dyke did not reply. The sheriff, Delaney, and the man 
named Christian conferred together in a low voice. Then 
Delaney and Christian left the others, making a wide 


484 


The Octopus 


detour up the sides of the arroyo, to gain a position to the 
left and somewhat to the rear of Dyke. 

But it was at this moment that S. Behrman arrived. 
It could not be said whether it was courage or careless- 
ness that brought the Railroad s agent within reach of 
Dyke’s revolver. Possibly he was really a brave man; 
possibly occupied with keeping an uncertain seat upon 
the back of his labouring, scrambling horse, he had not 
noticed that he was so close upon that scene of battle. 
He certainly did not observe the posse lying upon the 
ground behind sheltering rocks and trees, and before 
anyone could call a warning, he had ridden out into the 
open, within thirty paces of Dyke’s intrenchment. 

Dyke saw. There was the arch-enemy ; the man of all 
men whom he most hated ; the man who had ruined him, 
who had exasperated him and driven him to crime, and 
who had instigated tireless pursuit through all those past 
terrible weeks. Suddenly, inviting death, he leaped up 
and forward ; he had forgotten all else, all other consider- 
ations, at the sight of this man. He would die, gladly, so 
only that S. Behrman died before him. 

“ I’ve got you, anyway,” he shouted, as he ran forward. 

The muzzle of the weapon was not ten feet from S. 
Behrman’s huge stomach as Dyke drew the trigger. Had 
the cartridge exploded, death, certain and swift, would 
have followed, but at this, of all moments, the revolver 
missed fire. 

S. Behrman, with an unexpected agility, leaped from 
the saddle, and, keeping his horse between him and Dyke, 
ran, dodging and ducking, from tree to tree. His first 
shot a failure, Dyke fired again and again at his enemy, 
emptying his revolver, reckless of consequences. His 
every shot went wild, and before he could draw his knife, 
the whole posse was upon him. 

Without concerted plans, obeying no signal but th« 


A Story of California 485 

promptings of the impulse that snatched, unerring, at 
opportunity — the men, Delaney and Christian from one 
side, the sheriff and the deputy from the other, rushed in. 
They did not fire. It was Dyke alive they wanted. One 
of them had a riata snatched from a saddle-pommel, and 
with this they tried to bind him. 

The fight was four to one — four men with law on their 
side, to one wounded freebooter, half-starved, exhausted 
by days and nights of pursuit, worn down with loss of 
sleep, thirst, privation, and the grinding, nerve-racking 
consciousness of an ever-present peril. 

They swarmed upon him from all sides, gripping at 
his legs, at his arms, his throat, his head, striking, clutch- 
ing, kicking, falling to the ground, rolling over and over, 
now under, now above, now staggering forward, now 
toppling back. 

Still Dyke fought. Through that scrambling, strug- 
gling group, through that maze of twisting bodies, twin- 
ing arms, straining legs, S. Behrman saw him from 
moment to moment, his face flaming, his eyes bloodshot, 
his hair matted with sweat. Now he was down, pinned 
under, two men across his legs, and now half-way up 
again, struggling to one knee. Then upright again, with 
half his enemies hanging on his back. His colossal 
strength seemed doubled; when his arms were held, he 
fought bull-like with his head. A score of times, it 
seemed as if they were about to secure him finally and 
irrevocably, and then he would free an arm, a leg, a 
shoulder, and the group that, for the fraction of an in- 
stant, had settled, locked and rigid, on its prey, would 
break up again as he flung a man from him, reeling and 
bloody, and he himself twisting, squirming, dodging, his 
great fists working like pistons, backed away, dragging 
and carrying the others with him. 

More than once, he loosened almost every grip, and 


486 


The Octopus 

for an instant stood nearly free, panting, rolling his eyes, 
his clothes torn from his body, bleeding, dripping with 
sweat, a terrible figure, nearly free. The sheriff, under 
his breath, uttered an exclamation : 

By God, he’ll get away yet.’^ 

S. Behrman watched the fight complacently. 

“ That all may show obstinacy,” he commented, “ but 
it don’t show common sense.’^ 

Yet, however Dyke might throw off the clutches and 
fettering embraces that encircled him, however he might 
disintegrate and scatter the band of foes that heaped 
themselves upon him, however he might gain one instant 
of comparative liberty, some one of his assailants always 
hung, doggedly, blindly to an arm, a leg, or a foot, and 
the others, drawing a second’s breath, closed in again, 
implacable, unconquerable, ferocious, like hounds upon a 
wolf. 

At length, two of the men managed to bring Dyke’s 
wrists close enough together to allow the sheriff to snap 
the handcuffs on. Even then, Dyke, clasping his hands, 
and using the handcuffs themselves as a weapon, knocked 
down Delaney by the crushing impact of the steel brace- 
lets upon the cow-puncher’s forehead. But he could no 
longer protect himself from attacks from behind, and the 
riata was finally passed around his body, pinioning his 
arms to his sides. After this it was useless to resist. 

The wounded deputy sat with his back to a rock, hold- 
ing his broken jaw in both hands. The sheriff’s horse, 
with its splintered foreleg, would have to be shot. De- 
laney’s head was cut from temple to cheekbone. The 
right wrist of the sheriff was all but dislocated. The 
other deputy was so exhausted he had to be helped to his 
horse. But Dyke was taken. 

He himself had suddenly lapsed into semi-unconscious- 
ness, unable to walk. They sat him on the buckskin, S. 


A Story of California 


487 


Behrman supporting him, the sheriff, on foot, leading the 
horse by the bridle. The little procession formed, and 
descended from the hills, turning in the direction of 
Bonneville. A special train, one car and an engine, would 
be made up there, and the highwayman would sleep in the 
Visalia jail that night. 

Delaney and S. Behrman found themselves in the rear 
of the cavalcade as it moved off. The cow-puncher 
turned to his chief : 

Well, captain,” he said, still panting, as he bound up 
his forehead ; well — we got him.” 


VI 


Osterman cut his wheat that summer before any of the 
other ranchers, and as soon as his harvest was over or- 
ganized a jack-rabbit drive. Like Annixter’s barn-dance, 
it was to be an event in which all the country-side should 
take part. The drive was to begin on the most western 
division of the Osterman ranch, whence it would proceed 
towards the southeast, crossing into the northern part of 
Quien Sabe — on which Annixter had sown no wheat — ■ 
and ending in the hills at the headwaters of Broderson 
Creek, where a barbecue was to be held. 

Early on the morning of the day of the drive, as Har- 
ran and Presley were saddling their horses before the 
stables on Los Muertos, the foreman, Phelps, remarked : 

“ I was into town last night, and I hear that Christian 
has been after Ruggles early and late to have him put 
him in possession here on Los Muertos, and Delaney is 
doing the same for Quien Sabe.” 

It was this man Christian, the real estate broker, and 
cousin of S. Behrman, one of the main actors in the 
drama of Dyke's capture, who had come forward as a 
purchaser of Los Muertos when the Railroad had re- 
graded its holdings on the ranches around Bonneville. 

“ He claims, of course,” Phelps went on, that when 
he bought Los Muertos of the Railroad he was guar- 
anteed possession, and he wants the place in time for the 
harvest.” 

That’s almost as thin,” muttered Harran as he thrust 
the bit into his horse's mouth. as Delaney buying An- 


489 


A Story of California 

nixter’s Home ranch. That slice of Quien Sabe, accord- 
ing to the Railroad’s grading, is worth about ten thousand 
dollars; yes, even fifteen, and I don’t believe Delaney is 
worth the price of a good horse. Why, those people don’t 
even try to preserve appearances. Where would Christian 
find the money to buy Los Muertos? There’s no one 
man in all Bonneville rich enough to do it. Damned ras- 
cals I as if we didn’t see that Christian and Delaney are 
S. Behrman’s right and left hands. Well, he’ll get ’em 
cut off,” he cried with sudden fierceness, if he comes 
too near the machine.” 

'' How is it, Harran,” asked Presley as the two young 
men rode out of the stable yard, '' how is it the Railroad 
gang can do anything before the Supreme Court hands 
down a decision ? ” 

“Well, you know how they talk,” growled Harran. 
“ They have claimed that the cases taken up to the 
Supreme Court were not test cases as zve claim they arCy 
and that because neither Annixter nor the Governor ap- 
pealed, they’ve lost their cases by default. It’s the rotten- 
est kind of sharp practice, but it won’t do any good. The 
League is too strong. They won’t dare move on us yet 
awhile. Why, Pres, the moment they’d try to jump any 
of these ranches around here, they would have six hun- 
dred rifles cracking at them as quick as how-do-you-do. 
Why, it would take a regiment of U. S. soldiers to put 
any one of us off our land. No, sir; they know the 
League means business this time.” 

As Presley and Harran trotted on along the county 
road they continually passed or overtook other horsemen, 
or buggies, carry-alls, buck-boards or even farm wagons, 
going in the same direction. These were full of the 
farming people from all the country round about Bonne- 
ville, on their way to the rabbit drive — the same people 
seen at the barn-dance — in their Sunday finery, the girls 


490 


The Octopus 

in muslin frocks and garden hats, the men with linen 
dusters over their black clothes ; the older women in 
prints and dotted calicoes. Many of these latter had 
already taken off their bonnets — the day was very hot — 
and pinning them in newspapers, stowed them under 
the seats. They tucked their handkerchiefs into the 
collars of their dresses, or knotted them about their fat 
necks, to keep out the dust. From the axle trees of the 
vehicles swung carefully covered buckets of galvanised 
iron, in which the lunch was packed. The younger chil- 
dren, the boys with great frilled collars, the girls with 
ill-fitting shoes cramping their feet, leaned from the sides 
of buggy and carry-all, eating bananas and “ macaroons,” 
staring about with ox-like stolidity. Tied to the axles, 
the dogs followed the horses’ hoofs with lolling tongues 
coated with dust. 

The California summer lay blanket-wise and smother- 
ing over all the land. The hills, bone-dry, were browned 
and parched. The grasses and wild-oats, sear and yellow, 
snapped like glass filaments under foot. The roads, the 
bordering fences, even the lower leaves and branches of 
the trees, were thick and grey with dust. All colour had 
been burned from the landscape, except in the irrigated 
patches, that in the waste of brown and dull yellow 
glowed like oases. 

The wheat, now close to its maturity, had turned from 
pale yellow to golden yellow, and from that to brown. 
Like a gigantic carpet, it spread itself over all the land. 
There was nothing else to be seen but the limitless sea of 
wheat as far as the eye could reach, dry, rustling, crisp 
and harsh in the rare breaths of hot wind out of the 
southeast. 

A.S Harran and Presley went along the county road, 
the number of vehicles and riders increased. They over- 
took and passed Hooven and his family in the former’s 


A Story of California 491 

farm wagon, a saddled horse tied to the back board. The 
little Dutchman, wearing the old frock coat of Magnus 
Derrick, and a new broad-brimmed straw hat, sat on the 
front seat with Mrs. Hooven. The little girl Hilda, and 
the older daughter Minna, were behind them on a board 
laid across the sides of the wagon. Presley and Harran 
stopped to shake hands. 

“ Say,’’ cried Hooven, exhibiting an old, but extreme- 
ly well kept, rifle, “ say, bei Gott, me, I tek some schatz at 
dose rebbit, you bedt. Ven he hef shtop to run und sit 
oop soh, bei der hind laigs on, I oop mit der guhn und-^ 
bing ! I cetch um.” 

“ The marshals won^t allow you to shoot, Bismarck,^'' 
observed Presley, looking at Minna. 

Hooven doubled up with merriment. 

Ho ! dot's hell of some fine joak. Me, Fm one oaf 
dose mairschell mine-selluf F he roared with delight, beat- 
ing his knee. To his notion, the joke was irresistible. 
All day long, he could be heard repeating it. “ Und 
Mist’r Praicelie, he say, ^ Dose mairschell woand led you 
schoot, Bismarck,' und me^ ach Gott, m^, aindt I mine- 
selluf one oaf dose mairschell? " 

As the two friends rode on, Presley had in his mind 
the image of Minna Hooven, very pretty in a clean gown 
of pink gingham, a cheap straw sailor hat from a Bonne- 
ville store on her blue black hair. He remembered her 
very pale face, very red lips and eyes of greenish blue, — 
a pretty girl certainly, always trailing a group of men 
behind her. Her love affairs were the talk of all Los 
Muertos. 

“ I hope that Hooven girl won’t go to the bad," Presley 
said to Harran. 

** Oh, she's all right," the other answered. There's 
nothing vicious about Minna, and I guess she'll marry 
that foreman on the ditch gang, right enough." 


492 


The Octopus 


“ Well, as a matter of course, she's a good girl," Pres- 
ley hastened to reply, only she’s too pretty for a poor 
girl, and too sure of her prettiness besides. That’s the 
kind,” he continued, “ who would find it pretty easy to go 
wrong if they lived in a city." 

Around Caraher’s was a veritable throng. Saddle 
horses and buggies by the score were clustered under- 
neath the shed or hitched to the railings in front of the 
watering trough. Three of Broderson’s Portuguese 
tenants and a couple of workmen from the Railroad shops 
in Bonneville were on the porch, already very drunk. 

Continually, young men, singly or in groups, came 
from the door-way, wiping their lips with sidelong ges- 
tures of the hand. The whole place exhaled the febrile 
bustle of the saloon on a holiday morning. 

The procession of teams streamed on through Bonne- 
ville, reenforced at every street corner. Along the Upper 
Road from Quien Sabe and Guadalajara came fresh aux- 
iliaries, Spanish-Mexicans from the town itself, — swarthy 
young men on cape»*ing horses, dark-eyed girls and ma- 
trons, in red and black and yellow, more Portuguese in 
brand-new overalls, smoking long thin cigars. Even 
Father Sarria appeared. 

“ Look,” said Presley, there goes Annixter and 
Hilma. He’s got his buckskin back.” The master of 
Quien Sabe, in top laced boots and campaign hat, a cigar 
in his teeth, followed along beside the carry-all. Hilma 
and Mrs. Derrick were on the back seat, young Vacca 
driving. Harran and Presley bowed, taking off their 
hats. 

“ Hello, hello. Pres,” cried Annixter, over the heads of 
the intervening crowd, standing up in his stirrups and 
waving a hand, “ Great day I What a mob, hey ? Say, 
when this thing is over and everybody starts to walk into 
the barbecue, come and have lunch with us. Pll look 


A Story of California 493 

for you, you and Harran. Hello, Harran, where’s the 
Governor ? ” 

“ He didn’t come to-day,” Harran shouted back, as the 
crowd carried him further away from Annixter. Left 
him and old Broderson at Los Muertos.” 

The throng emerged into the open country again, 
spreading out upon the Osterman ranch. From all direc- 
tions could be seen horses and buggies driving across the 
stubble, converging upon the rendezvous. Osterman’s 
Ranch house was left to the eastward; the army of the 
guests hurrying forward — for it began to be late — to 
where around a flag pole, flying a red flag, a vast crowd 
of buggies and horses was already forming. The mar- 
shals began to appear. Hooven, descending from the 
farm wagon, pinned his white badge to his hat brim and 
mounted his horse. Osterman, in marvellous riding 
clothes of English pattern, galloped up and down upon 
his best thoroughbred, cracking jokes with everybody, 
chaffing, joshing, his great mouth distended in a per- 
petual grin of amiability. 

“ Stop here, stop here,” he vociferated, dashing along 
in front of Presley and Harran, waving his crop. The 
procession came to a halt, the horses’ heads pointing 
eastward. The line began to be formed. The marshals 
perspiring, shouting, fretting, galloping about, urging 
this one forward, ordering this one back, ranged the 
thousands of conveyances and cavaliers in a long line, 
shaped like a wide open crescent. Its wings, under the 
command of lieutenants, were slightly advanced. Far out 
before its centre Osterman took his place, delighted be- 
yond expression at his conspicuousness, posing for the 
gallery, making his horse dance. 

‘"Wail, aindt dey gowun to gommence den bretty 
soohn,” exclaimed Mrs. Hooven, who had taken her 
husband’s place on the forward seat of the wagon. 


494 


The Octopus 


I never was so warm,” murmured Minna, fanning 
herself with her hat. All seemed in readiness. For miles 
over the flat expanse of stubble, curved the interminable 
lines of horses and vehicles. At a guess, nearly five 
thousand people were present. The drive was one of the 
largest ever held. But no start was made; immobilized, 
the vast crescent stuck motionless under the blazing sun. 
Here and there could be heard voices uplifted in jocular 
remonstrance. 

Oh, I say, get a move on, somebody.” 

‘‘All aboard.” 

Say, ril take root here pretty soon.” 

Some took malicious pleasure in starting false alarms. 

Ah, here we go.” 

Off, at last.” 

“ We’re off.” 

Invariably these jokes fooled some one in the line. An 
old man, or some old woman, nervous, hard of hearing, 
always gathered up the reins and started off, only to be 
hustled and ordered back into the line by the nearest 
marshal. This manoeuvre never failed to produce its 
effect of hilarity upon those near at hand. Everybody 
laughed at the blunderer, the joker jeering audibly. 

“ Hey, come back here.” 

Oh, he’s easy.” 

'' Don’t be in a hurry. Grandpa.” 

Say, you want to drive all the rabbits yourself.” 

Later on, a certain group of these fellows started a 
huge josh.” 

Say, that’s what we’re waiting for, the ‘ do-funny.^ ” 

The do-funny? ” 

“ Sure, you can’t drive rabbits without the * do-funny.’ ” 

“ What’s the do-funny ? ” 

“ Oh, say, she don’t know what the do-funny is. We 
can’t start without it, sure. Pete went back to get it.” 


495 


A Story of California 

“ Oh, youVe joking me, there’s no such thing.” 

“ Well, aren’t we waiting for it? ” 

** Oh, look, look,” cried some women in a covered 
rig. “ See, they are starting already ’way over there.” 

In fact, it did appear as if the far extremity of thft 
line was in motion. Dust rose in the air above it. 

“ They are starting. Why don’t we start? ” 

No, they’ve stopped. False alarm.” 

They’ve not, either. Why don’t we move ? ” 

But as one or two began to move oil, the nearest mar 
shal shouted wrathfully: 

“ Get back there, get back there.” 

‘‘ Well, they’ve started over there.” 

Get back, I tell you.” 

‘‘ Where’s the ‘ do-funny ? ’ ” 

Say, we’re going to miss it all. They’ve all started 
over there.” 

A lieutenant came galloping along in front of the line, 
shouting : 

Here, what’s the matter here ? Why don’t you 
start?” 

There was a great shout. Everybody simultaneously 
uttered a prolonged Oh-h.” 

We’re off.” 

Here we go for sure this time.” 

Remember to keep the alignment,” roared the lieu- 
tenant. “ Don’t go too fast.” 

And the marshals, rushing here and there on their 
sweating horses to points where the line bulged forward, 
shouted, waving their arms : “ Not too fast, not too fast. 
. . . Keep back here. . . . Here, keep closer to- 

gether here. Do you want to let all the rabbits run back 
between you ? ” 

A great confused sound rose into the air, — the creaking 
of axles, the jolt of iron tires over the dry clods, the click 


496 The Octopus 

of brittle stubble under the horses’ hoofs, the barking of 
dogs, the shouts of conversation and laughter. 

The entire line, horses, buggies, wagons, gigs, dogs, 
men and boys on foot, and armed with clubs, moved 
slowly across the fields, sending up a cloud of white dust, 
that hung above the scene like smoke. A brisk gaiety 
was in the air. Everyone was in the best of humor, 
calling from team to team, laughing, skylarking, joshing. 
Garnett, of the Ruby Rancho, and Gethings, of the San 
Pablo, both on horseback, found themselves side by side. 
Ignoring the drive and the spirit of the occasion, they 
kept up a prolonged and serious conversation on an 
expected rise in the price of wheat. Dabney, also on 
horseback, followed them, listening attentively to every 
word, but hazarding no remark. 

Mrs. Derrick and Hilma sat in the back seat of the 
carry-all, behind young Vacca. Mrs. Derrick, a little dis- 
turbed by such a great concourse of people, frightened 
at the idea of the killing of so many rabbits, drew back in 
her place, her young-girl eyes troubled and filled with a 
vague distress. Hilma, very much excited, leaned from 
the carry-all, anxious to see everything, watching for 
rabbits, asking innumerable questions of Annixter, who 
rode at her side. 

The change that had been progressing in Hilma, ever 
since the night of the famous barn-dance, now seemed 
to be approaching its climax; first the girl, then the 
woman, last of all the Mother. Conscious dignity, a new 
element in her character, developed. The shrinking, the 
timidity of the girl just awakening to the consciousness 
of sex, passed away from her. The confusion, the 
troublous complexity of the woman, a mystery even to 
herself, disappeared. Motherhood dawned, the old sim- 
plicity of her maiden days came back to her. It was 
no longer a simplicity of ignorance, but of supreme 


497 


A Story of California 

knowledge, the simplicity of the perfect, the simplicity 
of greatness. She looked the world fearlessly in the 
eyes. At last, the confusion of her ideas, like frightened 
birds, re-settling, adjusted itself, and she emerged from 
the trouble calm, serene, entering into her divine right, 
like a queen into the rule of a realm of perpetual peace. 

And with this, with the knowledge that the crown hung 
poised above her head, there came upon Hilma a gentle- 
ness infinitely beautiful, infinitely pathetic; a sweetness 
that touched all who came near her with the softness of a 
caress. She moved surrounded by an invisible atmos- 
phere of Love. Love was in her wide-opened brown 
eyes. Love — the dim reflection of that descending crown 
poised over her head — radiated in a faint lustre from her 
dark, thick hair. Around her beautiful neck, sloping to 
her shoulders with full, graceful curves, Love lay en- 
circled like a necklace — Love that was beyond words, 
sweet, breathed from her parted lips. From her white, 
large arms downward to her pink finger-tips — ^Love, an 
invisible electric fluid, disengaged itself, subtle, alluring. 
In the velvety huskiness of her voice. Love vibrated like 
a note of unknown music. 

Annixter, her uncouth, rugged husband, living in this 
influence of a wife, who was also a mother, at all hours 
touched to the quick by this sense of nobility, of gentle- 
ness and of love, the instincts of a father already clutch- 
ing and tugging at his heart, was trembling on the 
verge of a mighty transformation. The hardness and 
inhumanity of the man was fast breaking up. One 
night, returning late to the Ranch house, after a compul- 
sory visit to the city, he had come upon Hilma asleep. 
He had never forgotten that night. A realization of his 
boundless happiness in this love he gave and received, the 
thought that Hilma trusted him, a knowledge of his own 
unworthiness, a vast and humble thankfulness that his 


32 


498 The Octopus 

God had chosen him of all men for this great joy, had 
brought him to his knees for the first time in all his 
troubled, restless life of combat and aggression. He 
prayed, he knew not what, — vague words, wordless 
thoughts, resolving fiercely to do right, to make some 
return for God’s gift thus placed within his hands. 

Where once Annixter had thought only of himself, he 
now thought only of Hilma. The time when this thought 
of another should broaden and widen into thought of 
Others^ was yet to come ; but already it had expanded to 
include the unborn child — already, as in the case of Mrs. 
Dyke, it had broadened to enfold another child and 
another mother bound to him by no ties other than those 
of humanity and pity. In time, starting from this point 
it would reach out more and more till it should take in 
all men and all women, and the intolerant selfish man, 
while retaining all of his native strength, should become 
tolerant and generous, kind and forgiving. 

For the moment, however, the two natures struggled 
within him. A fight was to be fought, one more, the 
last, the fiercest, the attack of the enemy who menaced 
his very home and hearth, was to be resisted. Then, 
peace attained, arrested development would once more 
proceed. 

Hilma looked from the carry-all, scanning the open 
plain in front of the advancing line of the drive. 

'' Where are the rabbits ? ” she asked of Annixter. “ I 
don’t see any at all.” 

They are way ahead of us yet,” he said. “ Here, 
take the glasses.” 

He passed her his field glasses, and she adjusted them. 

“ Oh, yes,” she cried, '' I see. I can see five or six, but 
oh, so far off.” 

The beggars run ’way ahead, at first.” 

I should say so. See them run, — little specks. Every 


A Story of California 499 

now and then they sit up, their ears straight up, in the 
air.’’ 

“ Here, look, Hilma, there goes one close by.” 

From out of the ground apparently, some twenty yards 
distant, a great jack sprang into view, bounding away 
with tremendous leaps, his black-tipped ears erect He 
disappeared, his grey body losing itself against the grey 
of the ground. 

Oh, a big fellow.” 

“ Hi, yonder’s another.” 

“ Yes, yes, oh, look at him run.” 

From off the surface of the ground, at first apparently 
empty of all life, and seemingly unable to afford hiding 
place for so much as a field-mouse, jack-rabbits started 
up at every moment as the line went forward. At first, 
they appeared singly and at long intervals ; then in twos 
and threes, as the drive continued to advance. They 
leaped across the plain, and stopped in the distance, sit- 
ting up with straight ears, then ran on again, were 
joined by others; sank down flush to the soil — their ears 
flattened; started up again, ran to the side, turned back 
once more, darted away with incredible swiftness, and 
were lost to view only to be replaced by a score of 
others. 

Gradually, the number of jacks to be seen over the ex- 
panse of stubble in front of the line of teams increased. 
Their antics were infinite. No two acted precisely alike. 
Some lay stubbornly close in a little depression between 
two clods, till the horses’ hoofs were all but upon them, 
then sprang out from their hiding-place at the last second. 
Others ran forward but a few yards at a time, refusing 
to take flight, scenting a greater danger before them than 
behind. Still others, forced up at the last moment, 
doubled with lightning alacrity in their tracks, turning 
back to scuttle between the teams, taking desperate 


500 The Octopus 

chances. As often as this occurred, It was the signal for 
a great uproar. 

** Don't let him get through ; don't let him get through." 

“ Look out for him, there he goes." 

Horns were blown, bells rung, tin pans clamorously 
beaten. Either the jack escaped, or confused by the 
noise, darted back again, fleeing away as if his life de- 
pended on the Issue of the instant. Once even, a bewil- 
dered rabbit jumped fair into Mrs. Derrick's lap as she 
satin the carry-all, and was out again like a flash. 

** Poor frightened thing," she exclaimed ; and for a 
long time afterward, she retained upon her knees the 
sensation of the four little paws quivering with excite- 
ment, and the feel of the trembling furry body, with its 
wildly beating heart, pressed against her own. 

By noon the number of rabbits discernible by Annix- 
ter's field glasses on ahead was far into the thousands. 
What seemed to be ground resolved itself, when seen 
through the glasses. Into a maze of small, moving bodies, 
leaping, ducking, doubling, running back and forth — a 
wilderness of agitated ears, white tails and twinkling 
legs. The outside wings of the curved line of vehicles 
began to draw in a little ; Osterman's ranch was left be- 
hind, the drive continued on over Quien Sabe. 

As the day advanced, the rabbits, singularly enough, 
became less wild. When flushed, they no longer ran so 
far nor so fast, limping off instead a few feet at a time, 
and crouching down, their ears close upon their backs. 
Thus it was, that by degrees the teams began to close up 
on the main herd. At every instant the numbers in- 
creased. It was no longer thousands, it was tens of thou- 
sands. The earth was alive with rabbits. 

Denser and denser grew the throng. In all directions 
nothing was to be seen but the loose mass of the moving 
jacks. The horns of the crescent of teams began to con<< 


501 


A Story of California 

tract. Far off the corral came into sight. The disinte- 
grated mass of rabbits commenced, as it were, to solidify, 
to coagulate. At first, each jack was some three feet dis- 
tant from his nearest neighbor, but this space diminished 
to two feet, then to one, then to but a few inches. The 
rabbits began leaping over one another. 

Then the strange scene defined itself. It was no longer 
a herd covering the earth. It was a sea, whipped into 
confusion, tossing incessantly, leaping, falling, agitated 
by unseen forces. At times the unexpected tameness of 
the rabbits all at once vanished. Throughout certain 
portions of the herd eddies of terror abruptly burst forth. 
A panic spread; then there would ensue a blind, wild 
rushing together of thousands of crowded bodies, and a 
furious scrambling over backs, till the scuffing thud of 
innumerable feet over the earth rose to a reverberating 
murmur as of distant thunder, here and there pierced 
by the strange, wild cry of the rabbit in distress. 

The line of vehicles was halted. To go forward now 
meant to trample the rabbits under foot. The drive came 
to a standstill while the herd entered the corral. This 
took time, for the rabbits were by now too crowded to 
run. However, like an opened sluice-gate, the extending 
flanks of the entrance of the corral slowly engulfed the 
herd. The mass, packed tight as ever, by degrees di- 
minished, precisely as a pool of water when a dam is 
opened. The last stragglers went in with a rush, and the 
gate was dropped. 

''Come, just have a look in here,” called Annixter. 

Hilma, descending from the carry-all and joined by 
Presley and Harran, approached and looked over the 
high board fence. 

"Oh, did you ever see anything like that?” she ex- 
claimed. 

The corral^ a really large enclosure, had proved all too 


502 


The Octopus 

small for the number of rabbits collected by the drive. 
Inside it was a living, moving, leaping, breathing, twist- 
ing mass. The rabbits were packed two, three, and four 
feet deep. They were in constant movement; those be- 
neath struggling to the top, those on top sinking and dis- 
appearing below their fellows. All wildness, all fear of 
man, seemed to have entirely disappeared. Men and boys 
reaching over the sides of the corral, picked up a jack 
in each hand, holding them by the ears, while two re- 
porters from San Francisco papers took photographs of 
the scene. The noise made by the tens of thousands of 
moving bodies was as the noise of wind in a forest, while 
from the hot and sweating mass there rose a strange odor, 
penetrating, ammoniacal, savouring of wild life. 

On signal, the killing began. Dogs that had been 
brought there for that purpose when let into the corral 
refused, as had been half expected, to do the work. They 
snuffed curiously at the pile, then backed off, disturbed, 
perplexed. But the men and boys — Portuguese for the 
most part — were more eager. Annixter drew Hilma 
away, and, indeed, most of the people set about the bar- 
becue at once. 

In the corral, however, the killing went forward. 
Armed with a club in each hand, the young fellows from 
Guadalajara and Bonneville, and the farm boys from the 
ranches, leaped over the rails of the corral. They walked 
unsteadily upon the myriad of crowding bodies under- 
foot, or, as space was cleared, sank almost waist deep into 
the mass that leaped and squirmed about them. Blindly, 
furiously, they struck and struck. The Anglo-Saxon 
spectators round about drew back in disgust, but the hot, 
degenerated blood of Portuguese, Mexican, and mixed 
Spaniard boiled up in excitement at this wholesale 
slaughter. 

But only a few of the participants of the drive cared 


A Story of California 503 

to look on. All the guests betook themselves some quar- 
ter of a mile farther on into the hills. 

The picnic and barbecue were to be held around the 
spring where Broderson Creek took its rise. Already two 
entire beeves were roasting there; teams were hitched, 
saddles removed, and men, women, and children, a great 
throng, spread out under the shade of the live oaks. A 
vast confused clamour rose in the air, a babel of talk, a 
clatter of tin plates, of knives and forks. Bottles were 
uncorked, napkins and oil-cloths spread over the ground. 
The men lit pipes and cigars, the women seized the oc- 
casion to nurse their babies. 

Osterman, ubiquitous as ever, resplendent in his boots 
and English riding breeches, moved about between the 
groups, keeping up an endless flow of talk, cracking 
jokes, winking, nudging, gesturing, putting his tongue 
in his cheek, never at a loss for a reply, playing the goat. 

That josher, Osterman, always at his monkey-shines, 
but a good fellow for all that; brainy too. Nothing 
stuck up about him either, like Magnus Derrick.” 

“Everything all right. Buck?” inquired Osterman, 
coming up to where Annixter, Hilma and Mrs. Derrick 
were sitting down to their lunch. 

“ Yes, yes, everything right. But we’ve no cork- 
screw.” 

“No screw-cork — no scare-crow? Here you are,” 
and he drew from his pocket a silver-plated jack-knife 
with a cork-screw attachment. 

Harran and Presley came up, bearing between them 
a great smoking, roasted portion of beef just off the fire. 
Hilma hastened to put forward a huge china platter. 

Osterman had a joke to crack with the two boys, a 
joke that was rather broad, but as he turned about, the 
words almost on his lips, his glance fell upon Hilma her- 
self, whom he had not seen for more than two months. 


504 


The Octopus 


She had handed Presley the platter, and was now sitting 
with her back against the tree, between two boles of the 
roots. The position was a little elevated and the support- 
ing roots on either side of her were like the arms of a 
great chair — a chair of state. She sat thus, as on a 
throne, raised above the rest, the radiance of the unseen 
crown of motherhood glowing from her forehead, the 
beauty of the perfect woman surrounding her like a 
glory. 

And the josh died away on Osterman’s lips, and un- 
consciously and swiftly he bared his head. Something 
was passing there in the air about him that he did not 
understand, something, however, that imposed reverence 
and profound respect. For the first time in his life, em- 
barrassment seized upon him, upon this joker, this wearer 
of clothes, this teller of funny stories, with his large, red 
ears, bald head and comic actor^s face. He stammered 
confusedly and took himself away, for the moment ab- 
stracted, serious, lost in thought. 

By now everyone was eating. It was the feeding of 
the People, elemental, gross, a great appeasing of appe- 
tite, an enormous quenching of thirst. Quarters of beef, 
roasts, ribs, shoulders, haunches were consumed, loaves of 
bread by the thousands disappeared, whole barrels of 
wine went down the dry and dusty throats of the multi- 
tude. Conversation lagged while the People ate, while 
hunger was appeased. Everybody had their fill. One 
ate for the sake of eating, resolved that there should be 
nothing left, considering it a matter of pride to exhibit a 
clean plate. 

After dinner, preparations were made for games. On a 
flat plateau at the top of one of the hills the contestants 
were to strive. There was to be a footrace of young girls 
under seventeen, a fat men’s race, the younger fellows 
were to put the shot, to compete in the running broad 


A Story of California 505 

jump, and the standing high jump, in the hop, skip, and 
step and in wrestling. 

Presley was delighted with it all. It was Homeric, 
this feasting, this vast consuming of meat and bread and 
wine, followed now by games of strength. An epic sim^ 
plicity and directness, an honest Anglo-Saxon mirth and 
innocence, commended it. Crude it was; coarse it was, 
but no taint of viciousness was here. These people were 
good people, kindly, benignant even, always readier to 
give than to receive, always more willing to help than to 
be helped. They were good stock. Of such was the 
backbone of the nation — sturdy Americans everyone of 
them. Where else in the world round were such strong, 
honest men, such strong, beautiful women? 

Annixter, Harran, and Presley climbed to the level 
plateau where the games were to be held, to lay out the 
courses, and mark the distances. It was the very place 
where once Presley had loved to lounge entire afternoons, 
reading his books of poems, smoking and dozing. From 
this high point one dominated the entire valley to the 
south and west. The view was superb. The three men 
paused for a moment on the crest of the hill to consider it. 

Young Vacca came running and panting up the hill 
after them, calling for Annixter. 

“ Well, well, what is it?’’ 

'‘Mr. Osterman’s looking for you, sir, you and Mr. 
Harran. Vanamee, that cow-boy over at Derrick’s, has 
just come from the Governor with a message. I guess 
it’s important.” 

" Hello, what’s up now ? ” muttered Annixter, as they 
turned back. 

They found Osterman saddling his horse in furious 
haste. Near-by him was Vanamee holding by the bridle 
an animal that was one lather of sweat. A few of the 
picnickers were turning their heads curiously in that di- 


5o 6 The Octopus 

rection. Evidently something of moment was in the 
wind. 

“ What’s all up ? ” demanded Annixter, as he and Har- 
ran, followed by Presley, drew near. 

“ There’s hell to pay,” exclaimed Osterman under his 
breath. “Read that. Vanamee just brought it.” 

He handed Annixter a sheet of note paper, and turned 
again to the cinching of his saddle. 

“ We’ve got to be quick,” he cried. “ They’ve stolen a 
march on us.” 

Annixter read the note, Harran and Presley looking 
over his shoulder. 

“ Ah, it’s them, is it,” exclaimed Annixter. 

Harran set his teeth. “ Now for it/’ he exclaimed. 

“ They’ve been to your place already, Mr. Annixter,” 
said Vanamee. “I passed by it on my way up. They have 
put Delaney in possession, and have set all your furniture 
out in the road.” 

Annixter turned about, his lips white. Already Presley 
and Harran had run to their horses. 

“Vacca,” cried Annixter, “where’s Vacca? Put the 
saddle on the buckskin, quick. Osterman, get as many 
of the League as are here together at this spot, under- 
stand. ril be back in a minute. I must tell Hilma this.” 

Hooven ran up as Annixter disappeared. His little 
eyes were blazing, he was dragging his horse with him. 

“ Say, dose fellers come, hey? Me, I’m alretty, see I 
hev der guhn.” 

“They’ve jumped the ranch, little girl,” said Annixter, 
putting one ^rm around Hilma. “ They’re in our house 
now. I’m off. Go to Derrick’s and wait for me there.” 

She put her arms around his neck. 

“ You’re going? ” she demanded. 

“ I must. Don’t be frightened. It will be all right 
Go to Derrick’s and — good-bye.” 


A Story of California 507 

She said never a word. She looked once long into his 
eyes, then kissed him on the mouth. 

Meanwhile, the news had spread. The multitude rose 
to its feet. Women and men, with pale faces, looked at 
each other speechless, or broke forth into inarticulate 
exclamations. A strange, unfamiliar murmur took the 
place of the tumultuous gaiety of the previous mo- 
ments. A sense of dread, of confusion, of impending 
terror weighed heavily in the air. What was now to 
happen ? 

When Annixter got back to Osterman, he found a num- 
ber of the Leaguers already assembled. They were all 
mounted. Hooven was there and Harran, and besides 
these, Garnett of the Ruby ranch and Gethings of the 
San Pablo, Phelps the foreman of Los Muertos, and, 
last of all, Dabney, silent as ever, speaking to no one. 
Presley came riding up. 

Best keep out of this. Pres,” cried Annixter. 

“ Are we ready ? ” exclaimed Gethings. 

Ready, ready, we’re all here.” 

All. Is this all of us ? ” cried Annixter. Where are 
the six hundred men who were going to rise when this 
happened ? ” 

They had wavered, these other Leaguers. Now, when 
the actual crisis impended, they were smitten with con- 
fusion. Ah, no, they were not going to stand up and be 
shot at just to save Derrick’s land. They were not armed. 
What did Annixter and Osterman take them for? No, 
sir ; the Railroad had stolen a march on them. After all 
his big talk Derrick had allowed them to be taken by sur- 
prise. The only thing to do was to call a meeting of the 
Executive Committee. That was the only thing. As for 
going down there with no weapons in their hands, no, sir. 
That was rsking a little too much. 

'' Come on, then, boys,” shouted Osterman, turning his 


5o 8 The Octopus 

back on the others. The Governor says to meet him at 
Hooven's. We’ll make for the Long Trestle and strike 
the trail to Hooven’s there.” 

They set off. It was a terrible ride. Twice during the 
scrambling descent from the hills, Presley’s pony fell 
beneath him. Annixter, on his buckskin, and Osterman, 
on his thoroughbred, good horsemen both, led the others, 
setting a terrific pace. The hills were left behind. Bro- 
derson Creek was crossed and on the levels of Quien 
Sabe, straight through the standing wheat, the nine 
horses, flogged and spurred, stretched out to their ut- 
most. Their passage through the wheat sounded like the 
rip and tear of a gigantic web of cloth. The landscape on 
either hand resolved itself into a long blur. Tears came 
to the eyes, flying pebbles, clods of earth, grains of wheat 
flung up in the flight, stung the face like shot. Oster- 
man’s thoroughbred took the second crossing of Broder- 
son’s Creek in a single leap. Down under the Long 
Trestle tore the cavalcade in a shower of mud and 
gravel ; up again on the further bank, the horses blowing 
like steam engines ; on into the trail to Hooven’s, single 
file now, Presley’s pony lagging, Hooven’s horse bleed- 
ing at the eyes, the buckskin, game as a fighting cock, 
catching her second wind, far in the lead now, distancing 
even the English thoroughbred that Osterman rode. 

At last Hooven’s unpainted house, beneath the enor- 
mous live oak tree, came in sight. Across the Lower 
Road, breaking through fences and into the yard around 
the house, thundered the Leaguers. Magnus was waiting 
for them. 

The riders dismounted, hardly less exhausted than their 
horses. 

'' Why, where’s all the men ? ” Annixter demanded of 
Magnus. 

'' Broderson is here and Cutter,” replied the Governor, 


A Story of California 509 

no one else. I thought you would bring more men with 

you.'' 

There are only nine of us.” 

“And the six hundred Leaguers who were going to 
rise when this happened ! ” exclaimed Garnett, bitterly. 

“ Rot the League,” cried Annixter. “ It^s gone to pot 
— went to pieces at the first touch.” 

“We have been taken by surprise, gentlemen, after all,” 
said Magnus. “Totally off our guard. But there are 
eleven of us. It is enough.” 

“Well, what’s the game? Has the marshal come? 
How many men are with him ? ” 

“ The United States marshal from San Francisco,” ex- 
plained Magnus, “came down early this morning and 
stopped at Guadalajara. We learned it all through our 
friends in Bonneville about an hour ago. They tele- 
phoned me and Mr. Broderson. S. Behrman met him 
and provided about a dozen deputies. Delaney, Ruggles, 
and Christian joined them at Guadalajara. They left 
Guadalajara, going towards Mr. Annixter ’s ranch house 
on Quien Sabe. They are serving the writs in ejectment 
and putting the dummy buyers in possession. They are 
armed. S. Behrman is with them.” 

“ Where are they now ? ” 

“Cutter is watching them from the Long Trestle. They 
returned to Guadalajara. They are there now.” 

“ Well,” observed Gethings, “ from Guadalajara they 
can only go to two places. Either they will take the Up- 
per Road and go on to Osterman’s next, or they will take 
the Lower Road to Mr. Derrick’s.” 

“ That is as I supposed,” said Magnus. “ That is why 
I wanted you to come here. From Hooven’s, here, we 
can watch both roads simultaneously.” 

“Is anybody on the lookout on the Upper Road?” 

“ Cutter. He is on the Long Trestle.” 


510 The Octopus 

Say/’ observed Hooven, the instincts of the old-time 
soldier stirring him, say, dose feller pretty demn 
schmart, I tink. We got to put some picket way oudt 
bei der Lower Roadt alzoh, und he tek dose glassus 
Mist’r Ennixt’r got bei um. Say, look at dose irregation 
ditsch. Dot ditsch he run righd across both dose road, 
hey? Dat’s some fine entrenchment, you bedt. We fighd 
um from dose ditsch.” 

In fact, the dry irrigating ditch was a natural trench, 
admirably suited to the purpose, crossing both roads as 
Hooven pointed out and barring approach from Guadala- 
jara to all the ranches save Annixter’s — which had al- 
ready been seized. 

Gethings departed to join Cutter on the Long Trestle, 
while Phelps and Harran, taking Annixter’s field glasses 
with them, and mounting their horses, went out towards 
Guadalajara on the Lower Road to watch for the mar- 
shal’s approach from that direction. 

After the outposts had left them, the party in Hooven’s 
cottage looked to their weapons. Long since, every mem- 
ber of the League had been in the habit of carrying his 
revolver with him. They were all armed and, in addi- 
tion, Hooven had his rifle. Presley alone carried no 
weapon. 

The main roorri of Hooven’s house, in which the 
Leaguers were now assembled, was barren, poverty- 
stricken, but tolerably clean. An old clock ticked vocif- 
erously on a shelf. In one corner was a bed, with a 
patched, faded quilt. In the centre of the room, strad- 
dling over the bare floor, stood a pine table. Around 
this the men gathered, two or three occupying chairs, 
Annixter sitting sideways on the table, the rest standing. 

‘‘ I believe, gentlemen,” said Magnus, ** that we can go 
through this day without bloodshed. I believe not one 
shot need be fired. The Railroad will not force the issue* 


5II 


A Story of California 

will not bring about actual fighting. When the marshal 
realises that we are thoroughly in earnest, thoroughly 
determined, I am convinced that he will withdraw.” 

There were murmurs of assent. 

Look here,” said Annixter, if this thing can by any 
means be settled peaceably, I say let’s do it, so long as 
we don’t give in.” 

The others stared. Was this Annixter who spoke — 
the Hotspur of the League, the quarrelsome, irascible 
fellow who loved and sought a quarrel ? Was it Annix- 
ter, who now had been the first and only one of them all 
to suffer, whose ranch had been seized, whose household 
possessions had been flung out into the road? 

“ When you come right down to it,” he continued, 
“killing a man, no matter what he’s done to you, is a 
serious business. I propose we make one more attempt to 
stave this thing off. Let’s see if we can’t get to talk with 
the marshal himself; at any rate, warn him of the dan- 
ger of going any further. Boys, let’s not fire the first 
shot. What do you say ? ” 

The others agreed unanimously and promptly ; and old 
Broderson, tugging uneasily at his long beard, added : 

“ No — no — no violence, no unnecessary violence, that 
is. I should hate to have innocent blood on my hands — 
that is, if it is innocent. I don’t know, that S. Behrman 
— ah, he is a — a — surely he had innocent blood on his 
head. That Dyke affair, terrible, terrible ; but then Dyke 
was in the wrong — driven to it, though ; the Railroad did 
drive him to it I want to be fair and just to every- 
body ” 

“ There’s a team coming up the road from Los Muer- 
tos,” announced Presley from the door. 

“ Fair and just to everybody,” murmured old Broder- 
son, wagging his head, frowning perplexedly. “ I don’t 
want to — to — to harm anybody unless they harm me.” 


5^2 


The Octopus 

“Is the team going towards Guadalajara?” enquired 
Garnett, getting up and coming to the door. 

“ Yes, it’s a Portuguese, one of the garden truck men.” 

“ We must turn him back,” declared Osterman. “ He 
can’t go through here. We don’t want him to take any 
news on to the marshal and S. Behrman.” 

“ I’ll turn him back,” said Presley. 

He rode out towards the market cart, and the others, 
watching from the road in front of Hooven’s, saw him 
halt it. An excited interview followed. They could hear 
the Portuguese expostulating volubly, but in the end he 
turned back. 

“ Martial law on Los Muertos, isn’t it ? ” observed Os- 
terman. “ Steady all,” he exclaimed as he turned about, 
“here comes Harran.” 

Harran rode up at a gallop. The others surrounded 
him. 

“ I saw them,” he cried. “ They are coming this way. 
S. Behrman and Ruggles are in a two-horse buggy. All 
the others are on horseback. There are eleven of them. 
Christian and Delaney are with them. Those two have 
rifles. I left Hooven watching them.” 

“ Better call in Gethings and Cutter right away,” said 
Annixter. “ We’ll need all our men.” 

“ I’ll call them in,” Presley volunteered at once. “ Can 
I have the buckskin? My pony is about done up.” 

He departed at a brisk gallop, but on the way met 
Gethings and Cutter returning. They, too, from their 
elevated position, had observed the marshal’s party leav- 
ing Guadalajara by the Lower Road. Presley told them 
of the decision of the Leaguers not to fire until fired 
upon. 

“All right,” said Gethings. “But if it comes to a 
gun-fight, that means it’s all up with at least one of us. 
Delaney never misses his man.’' 


A Story of California 513 

When they reached Hooven’s again, they found that 
the Leaguers had already taken their position in the ditch. 
The plank bridge across it had been torn up. Magnus, 
two long revolvers lying on the embankment in front of 
him, was in the middle, Harran at his side. On either 
side, some five feet intervening between each man, stood 
the other Leaguers, their revolvers ready. Dabney, the 
silent old man, had taken off his coat. 

** Take your places between Mr. Osterman and Mr. 
Broderson,” said Magnus, as the three men rode up. 
‘‘ Presley,” he added, “ I forbid you to take any part in 
this aifair.” 

** Yes, keep him out of it,” cried Annixter from his po- 
sition at the extreme end of the line. ‘‘ Go back to 
Hooven’s house, Pres, and look after the horses,” he 
added. ‘‘This is no business of yours. And keep the 
road behind us clear. Don’t let any one come near, not 
any one, understand ? ” 

Presley withdrew, leading the buckskin and the horses 
that Gethings and Cutter had ridden. He fastened them 
under the great live oak and then came out and stood in 
the road in front of the house to watch what was going on. 

In the ditch, shoulder deep, the Leaguers, ready, watch- 
ful, waited in silence, their eyes fixed on the white shim- 
mer of the road leading to Guadalajara. 

“ Where’s Hooven ? ” enquired Cutter. 

“I don’t know,” Osterman replied. “He was out 
watching the Lower Road with Harran Derrick. Oh, 
Harran,” he called, “isn’t Hooven coming in?” 

“ I don’t know what he is waiting for,” answered Har- 
ran. “He was to have come in just after me. He 
thought maybe the marshal’s party might make a feint 
in this direction, then go around by the Upper Road, af- 
ter all. He wanted to watch them a little longer. But he 
ought to be here now.’* 


514 The Octopus 

** Think he’ll take a shot at them on his own account ? ^ 

“ Oh, no, he wouldn’t do that.” 

Maybe they took him prisoner.” 

“ Well, that’s to be thought of, too.” 

Suddenly there was a cry. Around the bend of the 
road in front of them came a cloud of dust. From it 
emerged a horse’s head. 

“Hello, hello, there’s something.” 

“ Remember, we are not to fire first.” 

“Perhaps that’s Hooven; I can’t see. Is it? There 
only seems to be one horse.” 

“ Too much dust for one horse.” 

Annixter, who had taken his field glasses from Har- 
ran, adjusted them to his eyes. 

“That’s not them,” he announced presently, “nor 
Hooven either. That’s a cart.” Then after another 
moment, he added, “ The butcher’s cart from Guadala- 
jara.” 

The tension was relaxed. The men drew long breaths, 
settling back in their places. 

“ Do we let him go on. Governor? ” 

“ The bridge is down. He can’t go by and we must 
not let him go back. We shall have to detain him and 
question him. I wonder the marshal let him pass.” 

The cart approached at a lively trot. 

“Anybody else in that cart, Mr. Annixter?” asked 
Magnus. “ Look carefully. It may be a ruse. It is 
strange the marshal should have let him pass.” 

The Leaguers roused themselves again. Osterman laid 
his hand on his revolver. 

“ No,” called Annixter, in another instant, “ no, there’s 
only one man in it.” 

The cart came up, and Cutter and Phelps, clambering 
from the ditch, stopped it as it arrived in front of the 
party. 


A Story of California 51^ 

'*Hey — what — what?” exclaimed the young butcher, 
pulling up. “ Is that bridge broke ? ” 

But at the idea of being held, the boy protested at top 
voice, badly frightened, bewildered, not knowing what 
was to happen next. 

** No, no, I got my meat to deliver. Say, you let me 
go. Say, I ain’t got nothing to do with you.” 

He tugged at the reins, trying to turn the cart about. 
Cutter, with his jack-knife, parted the reins just back of 
the bit. 

'' You’ll stay where you are, m’ son, for a while. We’re 
not going to hurt you. But you are not going back to 
town till we say so. Did you pass anybody on the road 
out of town ? ” 

In reply to the Leaguers’ questions, the young butcher 
at last told them he had passed a two-horse buggy and a 
lot of men on horseback just beyond the railroad 
They were headed for Los Muertos. 

“ That’s them, all right,” muttered Annixter, " They’re 
coming by this road, sure.” 

The butcher’s horse and cart were led to one side o) 
the road, and the horse tied to the fence with one of the 
severed lines. The butcher, himself, was passed over to 
Presley, who locked him in Hooven’s barn. 

^'Well, what the devil,” demanded Osterman, ‘‘has 
become of Bismarck ? ” 

In fact, the butcher had seen nothing of Hooven. The 
minutes were passing, and still he failed to appear. 

“ What’s he up to, anyways ? ” 

“Bet you what you like, they caught him. Just like 
that crazy Dutchman to get excited and go too near. You 
can always depend on Hooven to lose his head.” 

Five minutes passed, then ten. The road towards 
Guadalajara lay empty, baking and white under the 
sun. 


5 1 6 The Octopus 

** Well, the marshal and S. Behrman don’t seem to be 
in any hurry, either.” 

'' Shall I go forward and reconnoitre, Governor ? ” 
asked Harran. 

But Dabney, who stood next to Annixter, touched him 
on the shoulder and, without speaking, pointed down the 
road. Annixter looked, then suddenly cried out : 

“ Here comes Hooven.” 

The German galloped into sight, around the turn of 
the road, his rifle laid across his saddle. He came on rap- 
idly, pulled up, and dismounted at the ditch. 

Dey’re commen,” he cried, trembling with excitement. 

I watch um long dime bei der side oaf der roadt in der 
busches. Dey shtop bei der gate oder side der relroadt 
trecks and talk long dime mit one n’udder. Den dey 
gome on. Dey’re gowun sure do zum monkey-doodle 
pizeness. Me, I see Gritschun put der kertridges in his 
guhn. I tink dey gowun to gome my blace first. Dey 
gowun to try put me off, tek my home, bei Gott.” 

All right, get down in here and keep quiet, Hooven. 
Don't fire unless ” 

“ Here they are.” 

A half-dozen voices uttered the cry at once. 

There could be no mistake this time. A buggy, 
drawn by two horses, came into view around the curve of 
the road. Three riders accompanied it, and behind these, 
seen at intervals in a cloud of dust were two — three — 
five — six others. 

This, then, was S. Behrman with the United States 
marshal and his posse. The event that had been so long 
in preparation, the event which it had been said would 
never come to pass, the last trial of strength, the last 
fight between the Trust and the People, the direct, brutal 
gfrapple of armed men, the law defied, the Government 
ignored, behold, here it was close at hand. 


A Story of California 517 

Osterman cocked his revolver, and in the profound si- 
lence that had fallen upon the scene, the click was plainly 
audible from end to end of the line. 

“ Remember our agreement, gentlemen,” cried Mag- 
nus, in a warning voice. Mr. Osterman, I must ask 
you to let down the hammer of your weapon.” 

No one answered. In absolute quiet, standing motion- 
less in their places, the Leaguers watched the approach 
of the marshal. 

Five minutes passed. The riders came on steadily. 
They drew nearer. The grind of the buggy wheels in the 
grit and dust of the road, and the prolonged clatter of the 
horses* feet began to make itself heard. The Leaguers 
could distinguish the faces of their enemies. 

In the buggy were S. Behrman and Cyrus Ruggles, the 
latter driving. A tall man in a frock coat and slouched 
hat — the marshal, beyond question — rode at the left of the 
buggy; Delaney, carrying a Winchester, at the right. 
Christian, the real estate broker, S. Behrman*s cousin, also 
with a rifle, could be made out just behind the marshal. 
Back of these, riding well up, was a group of horse- 
men, indistinguishable in the dust raised by the buggy’s 
wheels. 

Steadily the distance between the Leaguers and the 
posse diminished. 

“ Don’t let them get too close, Governor,” whispered 
Harran. 

When S. Behrman’s buggy was about one hundred 
yards distant from the irrigating ditch, Magnus sprang 
out upon the road, leaving his revolvers behind him. He 
beckoned Garnett and Gethings to follow, and the three 
ranchers, who, with the exception of Broderson, were 
the oldest men present, advanced, without arms, to meet 
the marshal. 

Magnus cried aloud ’ 


5J8 


The Octopus 


“ Halt where you are.’' 

From their places in the ditch, Annixter, Osterman, 
Dabney, Harran, Hooven, Broderson, Cutter, and 
Phelps, their hands laid upon their revolvers, watched 
silently, alert, keen, ready for anything. 

At the Governor’s words, they saw Ruggles pull 
sharply on the reins. The buggy came to a standstill, the 
riders doing likewise. Magnus approached the marshal, 
still followed by Garnett and Gethings, and began to 
speak. His voice was audible to the men in the ditch, but 
his words could not be made out. They heard the mar- 
shal reply quietly enough and the two shook hands. De- 
laney came around from the side of the buggy, his horse 
standing before the team across the road. He leaned 
from the saddle, listening to what was being said, but 
made no remark. From time to time, S. Behrman and 
Ruggles, from their seats in the buggy, interposed a 
sentence or two into the conversation, but at first, so far 
as the Leaguers could discern, neither Magnus nor the 
marshal paid them any attention. They saw, however, 
that the latter repeatedly shook his head and once they 
heard him exclaim in a loud voice : 

“ I only know my duty, Mr. Derrick.” 

Then Gethings turned about, and seeing Delaney close 
at hand, addressed an unheard remark to him. The cow- 
puncher replied curtly and the words seemed to anger 
Gethings. He made a gesture, pointing back to the 
ditch, showing the intrenched Leaguers to the posse. 
Delaney appeared to communicate the news that the 
Leaguers were on hand and prepared to resist, to the 
other members of the party. They all looked toward 
the ditch and plainly saw the ranchers there, standing to 
their arms. 

But meanwhile Ruggles had addressed himself more 
directly to Magnus, and between the two an angry dis- 


A Story of California 519 

cussion was going forward. Once even Harran heard 
his father exclaim: 

'' The statement is a lie and no one knows it better than 
yourself.” 

“ Here,” growled Annixter to Dabney, who stood 
next him in the ditch, those fellows are getting too 
close. Look at them edging up. Don’t Magnus see 
that?” 

The other members of the marshal’s force had come 
forward from their places behind the buggy and were 
spread out across the road. Some of them were gath- 
ered about Magnus, Garnett, and Gethings ; and some 
were talking together, looking and pointing towards the 
ditch. Whether acting upon signal or not, the Leaguers 
in the ditch could not tell, but it was certain that one or 
two of the posse had moved considerably forward. Be- 
sides this, Delaney had now placed his horse between 
Magnus and the ditch, and two others riding up from 
the rear had followed his example. The posse sur- 
rounded the three ranchers, and by now, everybody was 
talking at once. 

Look here,” Harran called to Annixter, “ this won’t 
do. I don’t like the looks of this thing. They all seem 
to be edging up, and before we know it they may take 
the Governor and the other men prisoners.” 

They ought to come back,” declared Annixter. 

** Somebody ought to tell them that those fellows are 
creeping up.” 

By now, the angry argument between the Governor 
and Ruggles had become more heated than ever. Their 
voices were raised; now and then they made furious 
gestures. 

''They ought to come back,” cried Osterman. "We 
couldn’t shoot now if anything should happen, for fear 
of hitting them.” 


520 The Octopus 

'' Well, it sounds as though something were going to 
happen pretty soon/’ 

They could hear Gethings and Delaney wrangling 
furiously; another deputy joined in. 

“ Tm going to call the Governor back,” exclaimed An- 
nixter, suddenly clambering out of the ditch. 

“ No, no,” cried Osterman, “ keep in the ditch. They 
can’t drive us out if we keep here.” 

Hooven and Harran, who had instinctively followed 
Annixter, hesitated at Osterman’s words and the three 
halted irresolutely on the road before the ditch, their 
weapons in their hands. 

“ Governor,” shouted Harran, come on back. You 
can’t do anything.” 

Still the wrangle continued, and one of the deputies, 
advancing a little from out the group, cried out : 

Keep back there ! Keep back there, you ! ” 

Go to hell, will you ? ” shouted Harran on the instant. 
** You’re on my land.” 

Oh, come back here, Harran,” called Osterman. 

That ain’t going to do any good.” 

There — listen,” suddenly exclaimed Harran. ** The 
Governor is calling us. Come on ; I’m going.” 

Osterman got out of the ditch and came forward, catch- 
ing Harran by the arm and pulling him back. 

'' He didn’t call. Don’t get excited. You’ll ruin 
everything. Get back into the ditch again.” 

But Cutter, Phelps, and the old man Dabney, misun- 
derstanding what was happening, and seeing Osterman 
leave the ditch, had followed his example. All the 
Leaguers were now out of the ditch, and a little way 
down the road, Hooven, Osterman, Annixter, and Har- 
ran in front, Dabney, Phelps, and Cutter coming up from 
behind. 

“ Keep back, you,” cried the deputy again. 


521 


A Story of California 

In the group around S. Behrman’s buggy, Gethings 
and Delaney were yet quarrelling, and the angry debate 
between Magnus, Garnett, and the marshal still con- 
tinued. 

Till this moment, the real estate broker, Christian, had 
taken no part in the argument, but had kept himself in 
the rear of the buggy. Now, however, he pushed for- 
ward. There was but little room for him to pass, and^ 
as he rode by the buggy, his horse scraped his flank 
against the hub of the wheel. The animal recoiled 
sharply, and, striking against Garnett, threw him to the 
ground. Delaney’s horse stood between the buggy and 
the Leaguers gathered on the road in front of the ditch ; 
the incident, indistinctly seen by them, was misinter- 
preted. 

Garnett had not yet risen when Hooven raised a great 
shout : 

‘‘ Hochy der Kaiser! Hoch, der Vaterland! ” 

With the words, he dropped to one knee, and sighting 
his rifle carefully, fired into the group of men around 
the buggy. 

Instantly the revolvers and rifles seemed to go off of 
themselves. Both sides, deputies and Leaguers, opened 
fire simultaneously. At first, it was nothing but a con- 
fused roar of explosions; then the roar lapsed to an 
irregular, quick succession of reports, shot leaping after 
shot; then a moment’s silence, and, last of all, regular 
as clock-ticks, three shots at exact intervals. Then still- 
ness. 

Delaney, shot through the stomach, slid down from 
his horse, and, on his hands and knees, crawled from 
the road into the standing wheat. Christian fell back- 
ward from the saddle toward the buggy, and hung sus- 
pended in that position, his head and shoulders on the 
wheel, one stiff leg still across his saddle. Hooven, in 


522 


The Octopus 


attempting to rise from his kneeling position, received a 
rifle ball squarely in the throat, and rolled forward upon 
his face. Old Broderson, crying out, “ Oh, they’ve shot 
me, boys,” staggered sideways, his head bent, his hands 
rigid at his sides, and fell into the ditch, Osterman, 
blood running from his mouth and nose, turned about 
and walked back. Presley helped him across the irri- 
gating ditch and Osterman laid himself down, his head 
on his folded arms. Harran Derrick dropped where he 
stood, turning over on his face, and lay motionless, groan- 
ing terribly, a pool of blood forming under his stomach. 
The old man Dabney, silent as ever, received his death, 
speechless. He fell to his knees, got up again, fell once 
more, and died without a word. Annixter, instantly 
killed, fell his length to the ground, and lay without 
movement, just as he had fallen, one arm across his face. 


VII 


On their way to Derrick^s ranch house, Hilma and 
Mrs. Derrick heard the sounds of distant firing. 

“ Stop ! ** cried Hilma, laying her hand upon young 
Vacca’s arm. Stop the horses. Listen, what was 
that?’’ 

The carry-all came to a halt and from far away across 
the rustling wheat came the faint rattle of rifles and 
revolvers. 

Say,” cried Vacca, rolling his eyes, “ oh, say, they’re 
fighting over there.” 

Mrs. Derrick put her hands over her face. 

‘‘ Fighting,” she cried, oh, oh, it’s terrible. Magnus 
is there — and Harran.” 

“Where do you think it is?” demanded Hilma. 

“That’s over toward Hooven’s.” 

“ I’m going. Turn back. Drive to Hooven’s, quick.” 

“ Better not, Mrs. Annixter,” protested the young man. 
“ Mr. Annixter said we were to go to Derrick’s. Better 
keep away from Hooven’s if there’s trouble there. We 
wouldn’t get there till it’s all over, anyhow.” 

“Yes, yes, let’s go home,” cried Mrs. Derrick, “I’m 
afraid. Oh, Hilma, I’m afraid.” 

“ Come with me to Hooven’s then.” 

“ There, where they are fighting? Oh, I couldn’t. I— 
I can’t. It would be all over before we got there as Mr. 
Vacca says.” 

“ Sure,” repeated young Vacca. 

“Drive to Hooven’s,” commanded Hilma. “If you 


524 The Octopus 

won't, ril walk there." She threw off the lap-robes, 
preparing to descend. “ And you," she exclaimed, turn- 
ing to Mrs. Derrick, how can you — when Harran and 
your husband may be — may — are in danger." 

Grumbling, Vacca turned the carry-all about and drove 
across the open fields till he reached the road to Guadala- 
jara, just below the Mission. 

Hurry!" cried Hilma. 

The horses started forward under the touch of the 
whip. The ranch houses of Quien Sabe came in sight. 

“ Do you want to stop at the house? " inquired Vacca 
over his shoulder. 

“ No, no ; oh, go faster — make the horses run." 

They dashed through the houses of the Home ranch. 

“ Oh, oh," cried Hilma suddenly, ‘‘ look, look there. 
Look what they have done." 

Vacca pulled the horses up, for the road in front of 
Annixter’s house was blocked. 

A vast, confused heap of household effects was there 
— chairs, sofas, pictures, fixtures, lamps. Hilma’s little 
home had been gutted ; everything had been taken from it 
and ruthlessly flung out upon the road, everything that 
she and her husband had bought during that wonderful 
week after their marriage. Here was the white enamelled 
“ set " of the bedroom furniture, the three chairs, wash- 
stand and bureau, — the bureau drawers falling out, spill- 
ing their contents into the dust; there were the white 
wool rugs of the sitting-room, the flower stand, with its 
pots all broken, its flowers wilting ; the cracked goldfish 
globe, the fishes already dead; the rocking chair, the 
sewing machine, the great round table of yellow oak, the 
lamp with its deep shade of crinkly red tissue paper, the 
pretty tinted photographs that had hung on the wall — 
the choir boys with beautiful eyes, the pensive young 
girls in pink gowns — the pieces of wood carving that 


525 


A Story of California 

represented quails and ducks, and, last of all, its curtains 
of crisp, clean muslin, cruelly tom and crushed — the 
bed, the wonderful canopied bed so brave and gay, of 
which Hilma had been so proud, thrust out there into the 
common road, torn from its place, from the discreet inti- 
macy of her bridal chamber, violated, profaned, flung 
out into the dust and garish sunshine for all men to stare 
at, a mockery and a shame. 

To Hilma it was as though something of herself, of 
her person, had been thus exposed and degraded ; all that 
she held sacred pilloried, gibbeted, and exhibited to the 
world’s derision. Tears of anguish sprang to her eyes, a 
red flame of outraged modesty overspread her face. 

Oh,” she cried, a sob catching her throat, “ oh, how 
could they do it?” But other fears intruded; other 
greater terrors impended. 

“ Go on,” she cried to Vacca, go on quickly.” 

But Vacca would go no further. He had seen what 
had escaped Hilma’s attention, two men, deputies, no 
doubt, on the porch of the ranch house. They held pos- 
session there, and the evidence of the presence of the 
enemy in this raid upon Quien Sabe had daunted him. 

'' No, sir” he declared, getting out of the carry-all, '' I 
ain’t going to take you anywhere where you’re liable to 
get hurt. Besides, the road’s blocked by all this stuff. 
You can’t get the team by.” 

Hilma sprang from the carry-all. 

Come,” she said to Mrs. Derrick. 

The older woman, trembling, hesitating, faint with 
dread, obeyed, and Hilma, picking her way through and 
around the wreck of her home, set off by the trail to- 
wards the Long Trestle and Hooven’s. 

When she arrived, she found the road in front of the 
German’s house, and, indeed, all the surrounding yard, 
crowded with people. An overturned buggy lay on the 


526 


The Octopus 

side of the road in the distance, its horses in a tangle of 
harness, held by two or three men. She saw Caraher’s 
buckboard under the live oak and near it a second buggy 
which she recognised as belonging to a doctor in Guada- 
lajara. 

'' Oh, what has happened ; oh, what has happened ? ” 
moaned Mrs. Derrick. 

“ Come,’’ repeated Hilma. The young girl took her by 
the hand and together they pushed their way through the 
crowd of men and women and entered the yard. 

The throng gave way before the two women, parting 
to right and left without a word. 

'' Presley,” cried Mrs. Derrick, as she caught sight of 
him in the doorway of the house, '' oh, Presley, what has 
happened? Is Harran safe? Is Magnus safe? Where 
are they?” 

'' Don’t go in, Mrs. Derrick,” said Presley, coming for- 
ward, “ don’t go in.” 

“ Where is my husband ? ” demanded Hilma. 

Presley turned away and steadied himself against the 
jamb of the door. 

Hilma, leaving Mrs. Derrick, entered the house. The 
front room was full of men. She was dimly conscious of 
Cyrus Ruggles and S. Behrman, both deadly pale, talking 
earnestly and in whispers to Cutter and Phelps. There 
was a strange, acrid odour of an unfamiliar drug in the 
air. On the table before her was a satchel, surgical in- 
struments, rolls of bandages, and a blue, oblong paper 
box full of cotton. But above the hushed noises of voices 
and footsteps, one terrible sound made itself heard — the 
prolonged, rasping sound of breathing, half choked, 
laboured, agonised. 

“ Where is my husband ? ” she cried. She pushed the 
men aside. She saw Magnus, bareheaded, three or four 
men lying on the floor, one half naked, his body swathed 


A Story of California 527 

in white bandages; the doctor in shirt sleeves, on one 
knee beside a figure of a man stretched out beside him. 

Garnett turned a white face to her. 

** Where is my husband ? ” 

The other did not reply, but stepped aside and Hilma 
saw the dead body of her husband lying upon the bed. 
She did not cry out. She said no word. She went to the 
bed, and sitting upon it, took Annixter’s head in her lap, 
holding it gently between her hands. Thereafter she did 
not move, but sat holding her dead husband’s head in her 
lap, looking vaguely about from face to face of those in 
the room, while, without a sob, without a cry, the great 
tears filled her wide-opened eyes and rolled slowly down 
upon her cheeks. 

On hearing that his wife was outside, Magnus came 
quickly forward. She threw herself into his arms. 

'' Tell me, tell me,” she cried, is Harran — is ” 

We don’t know yet,” he answered. Oh, Annie ” 

Then suddenly the Governor checked himself. He, the 
indomitable, could not break down now. 

‘'The doctor is with him,” he said; “we are doing 
all we can. Try and be brave, Annie. There is always 
hope. This is a terrible day’s work. God forgive us 
all.” 

She pressed forward, but he held her back. 

“ No, don’t see him now. Go into the next room. Gar- 
nett, take care of her.” 

But she would not be denied. She pushed by Magnus, 
and, breaking through the group that surrounded her 
son, sank on her knees beside him, moaning, in compas- 
sion and terror. 

Harran lay straight and rigid upon the floor, his head 
propped by a pillow, his coat that had been taken oif 
spread over his chest. One leg of his trousers was 
soaked through and through with blood. His eyes were 


528 The Octopus 

half-closed, and with the regularity of a machine, the 
eyeballs twitched and twitched. His face was so white 
that it made his yellow hair look brown, while from his 
opened mouth, there issued that loud and terrible sound 
of guttering, rasping, laboured breathing that gagged 
and choked and gurgled with every inhalation. 

‘‘ Oh, Harrie, Harrie,’' called Mrs. Derrick, catching at 
one of his hands. 

The doctor shook his head. 

He is unconscious, Mrs. Derrick." 

“ Where was he — where is — the — the " 

Through the lungs." 

'' Will he get well? Tell me the truth." 

'' I don’t know, Mrs. Derrick." 

She had all but fainted, and the old rancher, Garnett, 
half-carrying, half-leading her, took her to the one ad- 
joining room — Minna Hooven’s bedchamber. Dazed, 
numb with fear, she sat down on the edge of the bed, 
rocking herself back and forth, murmuring: 

“ Harrie, Harrie, oh, my son, my little boy." 

In the outside room, Presley came and went, doing 
what he could to be of service, sick with horror, trem- 
bling from head to foot. 

The surviving members of both Leaguers and depu- 
ties — the warring factions of the Railroad and the Peo- 
ple — mingled together now with no thought of hostility. 
Presley helped the doctor to cover Christian’s body. S. 
Behrman and Ruggles held bowls of water while Oster- 
man was attended to. The horror of that dreadful busi- 
ness had driven all other considerations from the mind. 
The sworn foes of the last hour had no thought of any- 
thing but to care for those whom, in their fury, they had 
shot down. The marshal, abandoning for that day the 
attempt to serve the writs, departed for San Francisco. 

The bodies had been brought in from the road where 


529 


A Story of California 

they fell. Annixter’s corpse had been laid upon the bed ; 
those of Dabney and Hooven, whose wounds had all been 
in the face and head, were covered with a tablecloth. 
Upon the floor, places were made for the others. Cutter 
and Ruggles rode into Guadalajara to bring out the 
doctor there, and to telephone to Bonneville for others. 

Osterman had not at any time since the shooting, lost 
consciousness. He lay upon the floor of Hooven’s house, 
bare to the waist, bandages of adhesive tape reeved about 
his abdomen and shoulder. His eyes were half-closed. 
Presley, who looked after him, pending the arrival of a 
hack from Bonneville that was to take him home, knew 
that he was in agony. 

But this poser, this silly fellow, this cracker of jokes, 
whom no one had ever taken very seriously, at the last 
redeemed himself. When at length, the doctor had ar- 
rived, he had, for the first time, opened his eyes. 

I can wait,” he said. Take Harran first.” 

And when at length, his turn had come, and while the 
sweat rolled from his forehead as the doctor began prob- 
ing for the bullet, he had reached out his free arm and 
taken Presley’s hand in his, gripping it harder and 
harder, as the probe entered the wound. His breath 
came short through his nostrils; his face, the face of a 
comic actor, with its high cheek bones, bald forehead, 
and salient ears, grew paler and paler, his great slit of a 
mouth shut tight, but he uttered no groan. 

When the worst anguish was over and he could find 
breath to speak, his first words had been : 

“Were any of the others badly hurt?” 

As Presley stood by the door of the house after bring- 
ing in a pail of water for the doctor, he was aware of a 
party of men who had struck off from the road on the 
other side of the irrigating ditch and were advancing 
cautiously into the field of wheat. He wondered what it 


530 


The Octopus 

meant and Cutter, coming up at that moment, Presley 
asked him if he knew. 

“ It’s Delaney,” said Cutter. It seems that when he 
was shot he crawled off into the wheat. They are look- 
ing for him there.” 

Presley had forgotten all about the buster and had 
only a vague recollection of seeing him slide from his 
horse at the beginning of the fight. Anxious to know 
what had become of him, he hurried up and joined the 
party of searchers. 

We better look out,” said one of the young men, 
how we go fooling around in here. If he’s alive yet 
he’s just as liable as not to think we’re after him and 
take a shot at us.” 

I guess there ain’t much fight left in him,” another 
answered. '‘Look at the wheat here.” 

“ Lord ! He’s bled like a stuck pig.” 

" Here’s his hat,” abruptly exclaimed the leader of the 
party. " He can’t be far off. Let’s call him.” 

They called repeatedly without getting any answer, 
then proceeded cautiously. All at once the men in ad- 
vance stopped so suddenly that those following car- 
romed against them. There was an outburst of ex- 
clamation. 

" Here he is ! ” 

" Good Lord ! Sure, that’s him.” 

" Poor fellow, poor fellow.” 

Tho cow-puncher lay on his back, deep in the wheat, 
his knees drawn up, his eyes wide open, his lips brown. 
Rigidly gripped in one hand was his empty revolver. 

The men, farm hands from the neighbouring ranches, 
young fellows from Guadalajara, drew back in instinctive 
repulsion. One at length ventured near, peering down 
into the face. 

" Is he dead ? ” inquired those in the rear. 


53 * 


A Story of California 

** I don^t know/^ 

“ Well, put your hand on his heart/’ 

“ No ! I — I don't want to." 

‘‘ What you afraid of ? " 

‘'Well, I just don't want to touch him, that's all. It's 
bad luck. You feel his heart." 

“ You can't always tell by that." 

“ How can you tell, then ? Pshaw, you fellows make 
me sick. Here, let me get there. I’ll do it." 

There was a long pause, as the other bent down and 
laid his hand on the cow-puncher's breast. 

“ Well?" 

“ I can't tell. Sometimes I think I feel it beat and 
sometimes I don't. I never saw a dead man before." 

“ Well, you can't tell by the heart." 

“What's the good of talking so blame much. Dead 
or not, let's carry him back to the house." 

Two or three ran back to the road for planks from the 
broken bridge. When they returned with these a litter 
was improvised, and throwing their coats over the body, 
the party carried it back to the road. The doctor was 
summoned and declared the cow-puncher to have been 
dead over half an hour. 

“ What did I tell you ? " exclaimed one of the group. 

“Well, I never said he wasn't dead," protested the 
other. “ I only said you couldn't always tell by whether 
his heart beat or not." 

But all at once there was a commotion. The wagon 
containing Mrs. Hooven, Minna, and little Hilda drove 
up. 

“ Eh, den, my men," cried Mrs. Hooven, wildly inter- 
rogating the faces of the crowd. “ Whadt has happun ? 
Sey, den, dose vellers, hev dey hurdt my men, eh, 
whadt ? " 

She sprang from the wagon, followed by Minna with 


532 


The Octopus 

Hilda in her arms. The crowd bore back as they ad- 
vanced, staring at them in silence. 

'' Eh, whadt has happun, whadt has happun ? wailed 
Mrs. Hooven, as she hurried on, her two hands out be- 
fore her, the fingers spread wide. Eh, Hooven, eh, my 
men, are you alle righdt ? ” 

She burst into the house. Hooven’s body had been 
removed to an adjoining room, the bedroom of the 
house, and to this room Mrs. Hooven — Minna still at her 
heels — proceeded, guided by an instinct born of the occa- 
sion. Those in the outside room, saying no word, made 
way for them. They entered, closing the door behind 
them, and through all the rest of that terrible day, no 
sound nor sight of them was had by those who crowded 
into and about that house of death. Of all the main 
actors of the tragedy of the fight in the ditch, they re- 
mained the least noted, obtruded themselves the least 
upon the world’s observation. They were, for the mo- 
ment, forgotten. 

But by now Hooven’s house was the centre of an 
enormous crowd. A vast concourse of people from 
Bonneville, from Guadalajara, from the ranches, swelled 
by the thousands who had that morning participated in 
the rabbit drive, surged about the place ; men and women, 
young boys, young girls, farm hands, villagers, towns- 
people, ranchers, railroad employees, Mexicans, Span- 
iards, Portuguese. Presley, returning from the search for 
Delaney’s body, had to fight his way to the house again. 

And from all this multitude there rose an indefinable 
murmur. As yet, there was no menace in it, no anger. It 
was confusion merely, bewilderment, the first long-drawn 
** oh ! ” that greets the news of some great tragedy. The 
people had taken no thought as yet. Curiosity was their 
dominant impulse. Every one wanted to see what had 
been done; failing that, to hear of it, and failing that, to 


533 


A Story of California 

be near the scene of the affair. The crowd of people 
packed the road in front of the house for nearly a quarter 
of a mile in either direction. They balanced themselves 
upon the lower strands of the barbed wire fence in their 
effort to see over each others’ shoulders; they stood on 
the seats of their carts, buggies, and farm wagons, a few 
even upon the saddles of their riding horses. They 
crowded, pushed, struggled, surged forward and back 
without knowing why, converging incessantly upon 
Hooven’s house. 

When, at length, Presley got to the gate, he found a 
carry-all drawn up before it. Between the gate and the 
door of the house a lane had been formed, and as he 
paused there a moment, a group of Leaguers, among 
whom were Garnett and Gethings, came slowly from the 
door carrying old Broderson in their arms. The doctor, 
bareheaded and in his shirt sleeves, squinting in the sun- 
light, attended them, repeating at every step : 

Slow, slow, take it easy, gentlemen.” 

Old Broderson was unconscious. His face was not 
pale, no bandages could be seen. With infinite precau- 
tions, the men bore him to the carry-all and deposited 
him on the back seat ; the rain flaps were let down on one 
side to shut off the gaze of the multitude. 

But at this point a moment of confusion ensued. 
Presley, because of half a dozen people who stood in his 
way, could not see what was going on. There were ex- 
clamations, hurried movements. The doctor uttered a 
sharp command and a man ran back to the house, return- 
ing on the instant with the doctor’s satchel. By this time, 
Presley was close to the wheels of the carry-all and 
could see the doctor inside the vehicle bending over old 
Broderson. 

*'Here it is, here it is,” exclaimed the man who had 
been ^ent to the house. 


534 The Octopus 

“I won't need it/' answered the doctor, ^^he's dying 
now." 

At the words a great hush widened throughout the 
throng near at hand. Some men took off their hats. 

'' Stand back/’ protested the doctor quietly, “ stand 
back, good people, please." 

The crowd bore back a little. In the silence, a woman 
began to sob. The seconds passed, then a minute. The 
horses of the carry-all shifted their feet and whisked their 
tails, driving off the flies. At length, the doctor got down 
from the carry-all, letting down the rain-flaps on that 
side as well. 

Will somebody go home with the body ? ” he asked. 
Gethings stepped forward and took his place by the 
driver. The carry-all drove away. 

Presley reentered the house. During his absence it 
had been cleared of all but one or two of the Leaguers, 
who had taken part in the fight. Hilma still sat on the 
bed with Annixter's head in her lap. S. Behrman, 
Ruggles, and all the railroad party had gone. Osterman 
had been taken away in a hack and the tablecloth over 
Dabney’s body replaced with a sheet. But still unabated, 
agonised, raucous, came the sounds of Harran's breath- 
ing. Everything possible had already been done. For 
the moment it was out of the question to attempt to move 
him. His mother and father were at his side, Magnus, 
with a face of stone, his look fixed on those persistently 
twitching eyes, Annie Derrick crouching at her son's 
side, one of his hands in hers, fanning his face continu- 
ally with the crumpled sheet of an old newspaper. 

Presley on tip-toes joined the group, looking on atten- 
tively. One of the surgeons who had been called from 
Bonneville stood close by, watching Harran's face, his 
arms folded. 

“ How is he ? " Presley whispered. 


535 


A Story of California 

He won’t live,” the other responded. 

By degrees the choke and gurgle of the breathing 
became more irregular and the lids closed over the 
twitching eyes. All at once the breath ceased. Magnus 
shot an inquiring glance at the surgeon. 

'' He is dead, Mr. Derrick,” the surgeon replied. 

Annie Derrick, with a cry that rang through all the 
house, stretched herself over the body of her son, her 
head upon his breast, and the Governor’s great shoulders 
bowed never to rise again. 

God help me and forgive me,” he groaned. 

Presley rushed from the house, beside himself with 
grief, with horror, with pity, and with mad, insensate 
rage. On the porch outside Caraher met him. 

“ Is he — is he — ” began the saloon-keeper. 

“Yes, he’s dead,” cried Presley. “They’re all dead, 
murdered, shot down, dead, dead, all of them. Whose 
turn is next ? ” 

“ That’s the way they killed my wife, Presley.” 

“Caraher,” cried Presley, “give me your hand. I’ve 
been wrong all the time. The League is wrong. All the 
world is wrong. You are the only one of us all who is 
right. I’m with you from now on. By God, I too, Fm a 
Red.r' 

In course of time^ a farm wagon from Bonneville 
arrived at Hooven’s. The bodies of Annixter and Har- 
ran were placed in it, and it drove down the Lower Road 
towards the Los Muertos ranch houses. 

The bodies of Delaney and Christian had already been 
carried to Guadalajara and thence taken by train to 
Bonneville. 

Hilma followed the farm wagon in the Derricks’ carry- 
all, with Magnus and his wife. During all that ride 
none of them spoke a word. It had been arranged that, 
since Quien Sabe was in the hands of the Railroad, Hilma 


536 The Octopus 

should come to Los Muertos. To that place also 
Annixter’s body was carried. 

Later on in the day, when it was almost evening, the 
undertaker’s black wagon passed the Derricks’ Home 
ranch on its way from Hooven’s and turned into the 
county road towards Bonneville. The initial excitement 
of the affair of the irrigating ditch had died down; the 
crowd long since had dispersed. By the time the wagon 
passed Caraher’s saloon, the sun had set. Night was 
coming on. 

And the black wagon went on through the darkness, 
unattended, ignored, solitary, carrying the dead body of 
Dabney, the silent old man of whom nothing was known 
but his name, who made no friends, whom nobody knew 
or spoke to, who had come from no one knew whence and 
who went no one knew whither. 

Towards midnight of that same day, Mrs. Dyke was 
awakened by the sounds of groaning in the room next to 
hers. Magnus Derrick was not so occupied by Harran’s 
death that he could not think of others who were in dis- 
tress, and when he had heard that Mrs. Dyke and Sidney, 
like Hilma, had been turned out of Quien Sabe, he had 
thrown open Los Muertos to them. 

Though,” he warned them, ‘‘it is precarious hospi- 
tality at the best” 

Until late, Mrs. Dyke had sat up with Hilma, com- 
forting her as best she could, rocking her to and fro in 
her arms, crying with her, trying to quiet her, for once 
having given way to her grief, Hilma wept with a terri- 
ble anguish and a violence that racked her from head to 
foot, and at last, worn out, a little child again, had 
sobbed herself to sleep in the older woman’s arms, and 
as a little child, Mrs. Dyke had put her to bed and had 
retired herself. 

Aroused a few hours later bv the sounds of a distress 


A Story of California 537 

that was physical, as well as mental, Mrs. Dyke hurried 
into Hilma’s room, carrying the lamp with her. 

Mrs. Dyke needed no enlightenment. She woke Pres- 
ley and besought him to telephone to Bonneville at once, 
summoning a doctor. That night Hilma in great pain 
suffered a miscarriage. 

Presley did not close his eyes once during the night ; 
he did not even remove his clothes. Long after the 
doctor had departed and that house of tragedy had 
quieted down, he still remained in his place by the open 
window of his little room, looking off across the leagues 
of growing wheat, watching the slow kindling of the 
dawn. Horror weighed intolerably upon him. Mon- 
strous things, huge, terrible, whose names he knew only 
too well, whirled at a gallop through his imagination, or 
rose spectral and grisly before the eyes of his mind. 
Harran dead, Annixter dead, Broderson dead, Osterman, 
perhaps, even at that moment dying. Why, these men 
had made up his world. Annixter had been his best 
friend, Harran, his almost daily companion; Broderson 
and Osterman were familiar to him as brothers. They 
were all his associates, his good friends, the group was 
his environment, belonging to his daily life. And he. 
standing there in the dust of the road by the irrigating 
ditch, had seen them shot. He found himself suddenly 
at his table, the candle burning at his elbow, his journal 
before him, writing swiftly, the desire for expression, 
the craving for outlet to the thoughts that clamoured 
tumultuous at his brain, never more insistent, more im- 
perious. Thus he wrote: 

Dabney dead, Hooven dead, Harran dead, Annixter 
dead, Broderson dead, Osterman dying, S. Behrman alive, 
successful ; the Railroad in possession of Quien Sabe. I 
saw them shot. Not twelve hours since I stood there at 
the irrigating ditch. Ah, that terrible moment of horror 


538 


The Octopus 


and confusion ! powder smoke — flashing pistol barrels— 
blood stains — rearing horses — men staggering to their 
death — Christian in a horrible posture, one rigid leg high 
in the air across his saddle — Broderson falling sideways 
into the ditch — Osterman laying himself down, his head 
on his arms, as if tired, tired out. These things, I have 
seen them. The picture of this day’s work is from hence- 
forth part of my mind, part of me. They have done it, 
S. Behrman and the owners of the railroad have done 
it, while all the world looked on, while the people of 
these United States looked on. Oh, come now and try 
your theories upon us, us of the ranchos, us, who have 
suffered, us, who know. Oh, talk to us now of the 
* rights of Capital,’ talk to us of the Trust, talk to us of 
the ‘ equilibrium between the classes.’ Try your ingeni- 
ous ideas upon us. We Know. I cannot tell whether or 
not your theories are excellent. I do not know if your 
ideas are plausible. I do not know how practical is your 
scheme of society. I do not know if the Railroad has a 
right to our lands, but I do know that Harran is dead, 
that Annixter is dead, that Broderson is dead, that Hoo- 
ven is dead, that Osterman is dying, and that S. Behrman 
is alive, successful, triumphant; that he has ridden into 
possession of a principality over the dead bodies of five 
men shot down by his hired associates. 

I can see the outcome. The Railroad will prevail. 
The Trust will overpower us. Here in this corner of a 
great nation, here, on the edge of the continent, here, in 
this valley of the West, far from the great centres, iso- 
lated, remote, lost, the great iron hand crushes life from 
us, crushes liberty and the pursuit of happiness from us, 
and our little struggles, our moment’s convulsion of 
death agony causes not one jar in the vast, clashing ma- 
chinery of the nation’s life ; a fleck of grit in the wheels, 
perhaps, a grain of sand in the cogs — the momentary 


539 


A Story of California 

creak of the axle is the mother’s wail of bereavement, 
the wife’s cry of anguish — and the great wheel turns, 
spinning smooth again, even again, and the tiny impedi- 
ment of a second, scarce noticed, is forgotten. Make the 
people believe that the faint tremour in their great en- 
gine is a menace to its function ? What a folly to think of 
it. Tell them of the danger and they will laugh at you. 
Tell them, five years from now, the story of the fight be- 
tween the League of the San Joaquin and the Railroad 
and it will not be believed. What! a pitched battle be- 
tween Farmer and Railroad, a battle that cost the lives of 
seven men? Impossible, it could not have happened. 
Your story is fiction — is exaggerated. 

Yet it is Lexington — God help us, God enlighten us, 
God rouse us from our lethargy — it is Lexington ; farm- 
ers with guns in their hands fighting for Liberty. Is 
our State of California the only one that has its ancient 
and hereditary foe? Are there no other Trusts between 
the oceans than this of the Pacific and Southwestern 
Railroad? Ask yourselves, you of the Middle West, ask 
yourselves, you of the North, ask yourselves, you of the 
East, ask yourselves, you of the South — ^ask yourselves, 
every citizen of every State from Maine to Mexico, from 
the Dakotas to the Carolinas, have you not the mon- 
ster in your boundaries ? If it is not a Trust of transpor- 
tation, it is only another head of the same Hydra. Is not 
our death struggle typical? Is it not one of many, is it 
not symbolical of the great and terrible conflict that is 
going on everywhere in these United States? Ah, you 
people, blind, bound, tricked, betrayed, can you not see 
it? Can you not see how the monsters have plundered 
your treasures and holding them in the grip of their iron 
claws, dole them out to you only at the price of your 
blood, at the price of the lives of your wives and your 
little children? You give your babies to Moloch for the 


540 


The Octopus 

loaf of bread you have kneaded yourselves. You offer 
your starved wives to Juggernaut for the iron nail you 
have yourselves compounded.'^ 

He spent the night over his journal, writing down such 
thoughts as these or walking the floor from wall to wall, 
or, seized at times with unreasoning horror and blind 
rage, flinging himself face downward upon his bed, vow- 
ing with inarticulate cries that neither S. Behrman nor 
Shelgrim should ever live to consummate their triumph. 

Morning came and with it the daily papers and news. 
Presley did not even glance at the '' Mercury." Bonne- 
ville published two other daily journals that professed to 
voice the will and reflect the temper of the people and 
these he read eagerly. 

Osterman was yet alive and there were chances of his 
recovery. The League — some three hundred of its mem- 
bers had gathered at Bonneville over night and were 
patrolling the streets and, still resolved to keep the peace, 
were even guarding the railroad shops and buildings. 
Furthermore, the Leaguers had issued manifestoes, urg- 
ing all citizens to preserve law and order, yet summoning 
an indignation meeting to be convened that afternoon at 
the City Opera House. 

It appeared from the newspapers that those who ob- 
structed the marshal in the discharge of his duty could 
be proceeded against by the District Attorney on informa- 
tion or by bringing the matter before the Grand Jury. 
But the Grand Jury was not at that time in session, and 
it was known that there were no funds in the marshal’s 
office to pay expenses for the summoning of jurors or 
the serving of processes. S. Behrman and Ruggles in 
interviews stated that the Railroad withdrew entirely 
from the fight ; the matter now, according to them, was 
between the Leaguers and the United States Govern- 
ment; they washed their hands of the whole business. 


541 


A Story of California 

The ranchers could settle with Washington. But it 
seemed that Congress had recently forbade the use of 
troops for civil purposes; the whole matter of the 
League-Railroad contest was evidently for the moment 
to be left in statu quo. 

But to Presley’s mind the most important piece of news 
that morning was the report of the action of the Railroad 
upon hearing of the battle. 

Instantly Bonneville had been isolated. Not a single 
local train was running, not one of the through trains 
made any halt at the station. The mails were not moved. 
Further than this, by some arrangement difficult to un- 
derstand, the telegraph operators at Bonneville and 
Guadalajara, acting under orders, refused to receive any 
telegrams except those emanating from railway officials. 
The story of the fight, the story creating the first impres- 
sion, was to be told to San Francisco and the outside 
world by S. Behrman, Ruggles, and the local P. and S. 
W. agents. 

An hour before breakfast, the undertakers arrived and 
took charge of the bodies of Harran and Annixter. 
Presley saw neither Hilma, Magnus, nor Mrs. Derrick. 
The doctor came to look after Hilma. He breakfasted 
with Mrs. Dyke and Presley, and from him Presley 
learned that Hilma would recover both from the shock 
of her husband’s death and from her miscarriage of the 
previous night. 

She ought to have her mother with her,” said the 
physician. “ She does nothing but call for her or beg to 
be allowed to go to her. I have tried to get a wire 
through to Mrs. Tree, but the company will not take it, 
and even if I could get word to her, how could she get 
down here? There are no trains.” 

But Presley found that it was impossible for him to 
stay at Los Muertos that day. Gloom and the shadowi 


542 


The Octopus 


of tragedy brooded heavy over the place. A great 
silence pervaded everything, a silence broken only by 
the subdued coming and going of the undertaker and his 
assistants. When Presley, having resolved to go into 
Bonneville, came out through the doorway of the house, 
he found the undertaker tying a long strip of crape to 
the bell-handle. 

Presley saddled his pony and rode into town. By this 
time, after long hours of continued reflection upon one 
subject, a sombre brooding malevolence, a deep-seated 
desire of revenge, had grown big within his mind. The 
first numbness had passed off ; familiarity with what had 
been done had blunted the edge of horror, and now the 
impulse of retaliation prevailed. At first, the sullen 
anger of defeat, the sense of outrage, had only smouldered, 
but the more he brooded, the fiercer flamed his rage. 
Sudden paroxysms of wrath gripped him by the throat; 
abrupt outbursts of fury injected his eyes with blood. 
He ground his teeth, his mouth filled with curses, his 
hands clenched till they grew white and bloodless. Was 
the Railroad to triumph then in the end ? After all those 
months of preparation, after all those grandiloquent reso- 
lutions, after all the arrogant presumption of the League ! 
The League ! what a farce ; what had it amounted to when 
the crisis came? Was the Trust to crush them all so 
easily? Was S. Behrman to swallow Los Muertos? S. 
Behrman ! Presley saw him plainly, huge, rotund, white ; 
saw his jowl tremulous and obese, the roll of fat over his 
collar sprinkled with sparse hairs, the great stomach with 
its brown linen vest and heavy watch chain of hollow 
links, clinking against the buttons of imitation pearl. 
And this man was to crush Magnus Derrick — ^had already 
stamped the life from such men as Harran and Annixter. 
This man, in the name of the Trust, was to grab Los 
Muertos as he had grabbed Quien Sabe, and after Los 


A Story of California 545 

Muertos, Broderson’s ranch, then Osterman’s, then others, 
and still others, the whole valley, the whole State. 

Presley beat his forehead with his clenched fist as he 
rode on. 

No,” he cried, no, kill him, kill him, kill him with 
my hands.” 

The idea of it put him beside himself. Oh, to sink his 
fingers deep into the white, fat throat of the man, to 
clutch like iron into the great puffed jowl of him, to 
wrench out the life, to batter it out, strangle it out, to 
pay him back for the long years of extortion and oppres- 
sion, to square accounts for bribed jurors, bought judges, 
corrupted legislatures, to have justice for the trick of the 
Ranchers" Railroad Commission, the charlatanism of the 
“ ten per cent, cut,’" the ruin of Dyke, the seizure of 
Quien Sabe, the murder of Harran, the assassination of 
Annixter ! 

It was in such mood that he reached Caraher’s. The 
saloon-keeper had just opened his place and was stand- 
ing in his doorway, smoking his pipe. Presley dis- 
mounted and went in and the two had a long talk. 

When, three hours later, Presley came out of the saloon 
and rode on towards Bonneville, his face was very pale, 
his lips shut tight, resolute, determined. His manner was 
that of a man whose mind is made up. 

The hour for the mass meeting at the Opera House 
had been set for one o’clock, but long before noon the 
street in front of the building and, in fact, all the streets 
in its vicinity, were packed from side to side with a 
shifting, struggling, surging, and excited multitude. 
There were few women in the throng, but hardly a single 
male inhabitant of either Bonneville or Guadalajara was 
absent. Men had even come from Visalia and Pixley. It 
was no longer the crowd of curiosity seekers that had 
thronged around Hooven’s place by the irrigating ditch ; 


544 


The Octopus 


the People were no longer confused, bewildered. A full 
realisation of just what had been done the day before 
was clear now in the minds of all. Business was sus- 
pended; nearly all the stores were closed. Since early 
morning the members of the League had put in an ap- 
pearance and rode from point to point, their rifles across 
their saddle pommels. Then, by ten o’clock, the streets 
had begun to fill up, the groups on the corners grew and 
merged into one another; pedestrians, unable to find 
room on the sidewalks, took to the streets. Hourly the 
crowd increased till shoulders touched and elbows, till 
free circulation became impeded, then congested, then 
impossible. The crowd, a solid mass, was wedged tight 
from store front to store front. And from all this 
throng, this single unit, this living, breathing organism — 
the People — there rose a droning, terrible note. It was 
not yet the wild, fierce clamour of riot and insurrection, 
shrill, high pitched; but it was a beginning, the growl 
of the awakened brute, feeling the iron in its flank, heav- 
ing up its head with bared teeth, the throat vibrating to 
the long, indrawn snarl of wrath. 

Thus the forenoon passed, while the people, their bulk 
growing hourly vaster, kept to the streets, moving slowly 
backward and forward, oscillating in the grooves of the 
thoroughfares, the steady, low-pitched growl rising con- 
tinually into the hot, still air. 

Then, at length, about twelve o’clock, the movement of 
the throng assumed definite direction. It set towards the 
Opera House. Presley, who had left his pony at the City 
livery stable, found himself caught in the current and 
carried slowly forward in its direction. His arms were 
pinioned to his sides by the press, the crush against his 
body was all but rib-cracking, he could hardly draw his 
breath. All around him rose and fell wave after wave 
of faces, hundreds upon hundreds, thousands upon thou- 


545 


A Story of California 

sands, red, lowering, sullen. All were set in one direc- 
tion and slowly, slowly they advanced, crowding closer, till 
they almost touched one another. For reasons that were 
inexplicable, great, tumultuous heavings, like ground- 
swells of an incoming tide, surged over and through the 
multitude. At times, Presley, lifted from his feet, was 
swept back, back, back, with the crowd, till the entrance 
of the Opera House was half a block away; then, the 
returning billow beat back again and swung him along, 
gasping, staggering, clutching, till he was landed once 
more in the vortex of frantic action in front of the foyer. 
Here the waves were shorter, quicker, the crushing pres- 
sure on all sides of his body left him without strength to 
utter the cry that rose to his lips; then, suddenly the 
whole mass of struggling, stamping, fighting, writhing 
men about him seemed, as it were, to rise, to lift, multi- 
tudinous, swelling, gigantic. A mighty rush dashed 
Presley forward in its leap. There was a moment’s whirl 
of confused sights, congested faces, opened mouths, 
bloodshot eyes, clutching hands ; a moment’s outburst of 
furious sound, shouts, cheers, oaths; a moment’s jam 
wherein Presley veritably believed his ribs must snap 
like pipestems and he was carried, dazed, breathless, 
helpless, an atom on the crest of a storm-driven wave, 
up the steps of the Opera House, on into the vestibule, 
through the doors, and at last into the auditorium of the 
house itself. 

There was a mad rush for places ; men disdaining the 
aisle, stepped from one orchestra chair to another, strid- 
ing over the backs of seats, leaving the print of dusty 
feet upon the red plush cushions. In a twinkling the 
house was filled from stage to topmost gallery. The 
aisles were packed solid, even on the edge of the stage 
itself men were sitting, a black fringe on either side' of 
the footlights. 

3S 


The Octopus 


546 

The curtain was up, disclosing a half-set scene, — the 
flats, leaning at perilous angles, — that represented some 
sort of terrace, the pavement, alternate squares of black 
and white marble, while red, white, and yellow flowers 
were represented as growing from urns and vases. A 
long, double row of chairs stretched across the scene from 
wing to wing, flanking a table covered with a red cloth, 
on which was set a pitcher of water and a speaker’s 
gavel. 

Promptly these chairs were filled up with members of 
the League, the audience cheering as certain well-known 
figures made their appearance — Garnett of the Ruby 
ranch, Gethings of the San Pablo, Keast of the ranch of 
the same name, Chattern of the Bonanza, elderly men, 
bearded, slow of speech, deliberate. 

Garnett opened the meeting; his speech was plain, 
straightforward, matter-of-fact. He simply told what 
had happened. He announced that certain resolutions 
were to be drawn up. He introduced the next speaker. 

This one pleaded for moderation. He was conserva- 
tive. All along he had opposed the idea of armed resist- 
ance except as the very last resort. He deplored ” the 
terrible affair of yesterday. He begged the people to 
wait in patience, to attempt no more violence. He in- 
formed them that armed guards of the League were, at 
that moment, patrolling Los Muertos, Broderson’s, and 
Osterman’s. It was well known that the United States 
marshal confessed himself powerless to serve the writs. 
There would be no more bloodshed. 

“We have had,” he continued, “ bloodshed enough, and 
I want to say right here that I am not so sure but what 
yesterday’s terrible affair might have been avoided. A 
gentleman whom we all esteem, who from the first has 
been our recognised leader, is, at this moment, mourning 
the loss -of a young son, killed before his eyes. God 


547 


A Story of California 

knows that I sympathise, as do we all, in the affliction 
of our President. I am sorry for him. My heart goes 
out to him in this hour of distress, but, at the same time, 
the position of the League must be defined. We owe it 
to ourselves, we owe it to the people of this county. The 
League armed for the very purpose of preserving the 
peace, not of breaking it. We believed that with six 
hundred armed and drilled men at our disposal, ready to 
muster at a moment’s call, we could so overawe any 
attempt to expel us from our lands that such an attempt 
would not be made until the cases pending before the 
Supreme Court had been decided. If when the enemy 
appeared in our midst yesterday they had been met by six 
hundred rifles, it is not conceivable that the issue would 
have been forced. No fight would have ensued, and to- 
day we would not have to mourn the deaths of four of 
our fellow-citizens. A mistake has been made and we of 
the League must not be held responsible.” 

The speaker sat down amidst loud applause from the 
Leaguers and less pronounced demonstrations on the part 
of the audience. 

A second Leaguer took his place, a tall, clumsy man, 
half-rancher, half-politician. 

want to second what my colleague has just said,” 
he began. *‘This matter of resisting the marshal when 
he tried to put the Railroad dummies in possession on the 
ranches around here, was all talked over in the commit- 
tee meetings of the League long ago. It never was our 
intention to fire a single shot. No such absolute author- 
ity as was assumed yesterday was delegated to anybody. 
Our esteemed President is all right, but we all know that 
he is a man who loves authority and who likes to go his 
own gait without accounting to anybody. We — the rest 
of us Leaguers — never were informed as to what was 
going on. We supposed, of course, that watch was being 


548 


The Octopus 

kept on the Railroad so as we wouldn't be taken by sur- 
prise as we were yesterday. And it seems no watch was 
kept at all, or if there was, it was mighty ineffective. 
Our idea was to forestall any movement on the part of 
the Railroad and then when we knew the marshal was 
coming down, to call a meeting of our Executive Com- 
mittee and decide as to what should be done. We ought 
to have had time to call out the whole League. Instead 
of that, what happens? While we're all off chasing rab- 
bits, the Railroad is allowed to steal a march on us and 
when it is too late, a handful of Leaguers is got together 
and a fight is precipitated and our men killed. Fm sorry 
for our President, too. No one is more so, but I want to 
put myself on record as believing he did a hasty and in- 
considerate thing. If he had managed right, he could 
have had six hundred men to oppose the Railroad and 
there would not have been any gun fight or any killing. 
He didn't manage right and there was a killing and I 
don’t see as how the League ought to be held responsible. 
The idea of the League, the whole reason why it was 
organised, was to protect all the ranches of this valley 
from the Railroad, and it looks to me as if the lives of our 
fellow-citizens had been sacrificed, not in defending all 
of our ranches, but just in defence of one of them — Los 
Muertos — the one that Mr. Derrick owns.” 

The speaker had no more than regained his seat when 
a man was seen pushing his way from the back of the 
stage towards Garnett. He handed the rancher a note, 
at the same time whispering in his ear. Garnett read the 
note, then came forward to the edge of the stage, holding 
Up his hand. When the audience had fallen silent he 
said: 

" I have just received sad news. Our friend and 
fellow-citizen, Mr. Osterman, died this morning between 
'Eleven and twelve o’clock.” 


549 


A Story of California 

Instantly there was a roar. Every man in the building 
rose to his feet, shouting, gesticulating. The roar in- 
creased, the Opera House trembled to it, the gas jets in 
the lighted chandeliers vibrated to it. It was a raucous 
howl of execration, a bellow of rage, inarticulate, deaf- 
ening. 

A tornado of confusion swept whirling from wall to 
wall and the madness of the moment seized irresistibly 
upon Presley. He forgot himself; he no longer was 
master of his emotions or his impulses. All at once he 
found himself upon the stage, facing the audience, flam- 
ing with excitement, his imagination on fire, his arms 
uplifted in fierce, wild gestures, words leaping to his mind 
in a torrent that could not be withheld. 

One more dead,” he cried, one more. Harran dead, 
Annixter dead, Broderson dead, Dabney dead, Osterman 
dead, Hooven dead; shot down, killed, killed in the 
defence of their homes, killed in the defence of their 
rights, killed for the sake of liberty. How long must it 
go on ? How long must we suffer ? Where is the end ; 
what is the end ? How long must the iron-hearted mon- 
ster feed on our life’s blood ? How long must this terror 
of steam and steel ride upon our necks? Will you never 
be satisfied, will you never relent, you, our masters, you, 
our lords, you, our kings, you, our task-masters, you, our 
Pharoahs. Will you never listen to that command * Let 
My people go ’ f Oh, that cry ringing down the ages. 
Hear it, hear it. It is the voice of the Lord God speaking 
in his prophets. Hear it, hear it — * Let My people go ! ’ 
Rameses heard it in his pylons at Thebes, Caesar heard 
it on the Palatine, the Bourbon Louis heard it at Ver- 
sailles, Charles Stuart heard it at Whitehall, the white 
Czar heard it in the Kremlin , — * Let My people go* It is 
the cry of the nations, the great voice of the centuries; 
everywhere it is raised. The voice of God is the voice 


550 


The Octopus 

of the People. The people cry out 'Let us, the People, 
God’s people, go.’ You, our masters, you, our kings, 
you, our tyrants, don’t you hear us ? Don’t you hear God 
speaking in us ? Will you never let us go ? How long 
at length will you abuse our patience? How long will 
you drive us ? How long will you harass us ? Will noth- 
ing daunt you? Does nothing check you? Do you not 
know that to ignore our cry too long is to wake the Red 
Terror? Rameses refused to listen to it and perished 
miserably. Caesar refused to listen and was stabbed in 
the Senate House. The Bourbon Louis refused to listen 
and died on the guillotine; Charles Stuart refused to 
listen and died on the block; the white Czar refused to 
listen and was blown up in his own capital. Will you 
let it come to that? Will you drive us to it? We who 
boast of our land of freedom, we who live in the country 
of liberty? 

Go on as you have begun and it will come to that. 
Turn a deaf ear to that cry of ‘ Let My people go ’ too long 
and another cry will be raised, that you cannot choose but 
hear, a cry that you cannot shut out. It will be the cry of 
the man on the street, the * a la Bastille ’ that wakes the 
Red Terror and unleashes Revolution. Harassed, plun- 
dered, exasperated, desperate, the people will turn at 
last as they have turned so many, many times before. 
You, our lords, you, our task-masters, you, our kings; 
you have caught your Samson, you have made his 
strength your own. You have shorn his head ; you have 
put out his eyes; you have set him to turn your mill- 
stones, to grind the grist for your mills ; you have made 
him a shame and a mock. Take care, oh, as you love your 
lives, take care, lest some day calling upon the Lord his 
God he reach not out his arms for the pillars of youf 
temples.” 

The audience, at first bewildered, confused by this un* 


551 


A Story of California 

expected invective, suddenly took fire at his last words. 
There was a roar of applause; then, more significant 
than mere vociferation, Presley’s listeners, as he began to 
speak again, grew suddenly silent. His next sentences 
were uttered in the midst of a profound stillness. 

“ They own us, these task-masters of ours ; they own 
our homes, they own our legislatures. We cannot es- 
cape from them. There is no redress. We are told we 
can defeat them by the ballot-box. They own the ballot- 
box. We are told that we must look to the courts for 
redress ; they own the courts. We know them for what 
they are, — ruffians in politics, ruffians in finance, ruffians 
in law, ruffians in trade, bribers, swindlers, and tricksters. 
No outrage too great to daunt them, no petty larceny too 
small to shame them; despoiling a government treasury 
of a million dollars, yet picking the pockets of a farm 
hand of the price of a loaf of bread. 

They swindle a nation of a hundred million and call 
it Financiering; they levy a blackmail and call it Com- 
merce; they corrupt a legislature and call it Politics; 
they bribe a judge and call it Law; they hire blacklegs 
to carry out their plans and call it Organisation; they 
prostitute the honour of a State and call it Competition. 

“ And this is America. We fought Lexington to free 
ourselves; we fought Gettysburg to free others. Yet the 
yoke remains ; we have only shifted it to the other shoul- 
der. We talk of liberty — oh, the farce of it, oh, the folly 
of it! We tell ourselves and teach our children that we 
have achieved liberty, that we no longer need fight for it. 
Why, the fight is just beginning and so long as our con- 
ception of liberty remains as it is to-day, it will continue. 

For we conceive of Liberty in the statues we raise to 
her as a beautiful woman, crowned, victorious, in bright 
armour and white robes, a light in her uplifted hand — a 
serene, calm, conquering goddess. Oh, the farce of it, 


552 


The Octopus 

oh, the folly of it I Liberty is not a crowned goddess, 
beautiful, in spotless garments, victorious, supreme. Lib- 
erty is the Man In the Street, a terrible figure, rushing 
through powder smoke, fouled with the mud and ordure 
of the gutter, bloody, rampant, brutal, yelling curses, in 
one hand a smoking rifle, in the other, a blazing torch. 

“Freedom is not given free to any who ask; Liberty 
is not born of the gods. She is a child of the People, 
born in the very height and heat of battle, born from 
death, stained with blood, grimed with powder. And 
she grows to be not a goddess, but a Fury, a fearful 
figure, slaying friend and foe alike, raging, insatiable, 
merciless, the Red Terror.’* 

Presley ceased speaking. Weak, shaking, scarcely 
knowing what he was about, he descended from the stage. 
A prolonged explosion of applause followed, the Opera 
House roaring to the roof, men cheering, stamping, wav- 
ing their hats. But it was not intelligent applause. In- 
stinctively as he made his way out, Presley knew that, 
after all, he had not once held the hearts of his audience. 
He had talked as he would have written; for all his 
scorn of literature, he had been literary. The men who 
listened to him, ranchers, country people, store-keepers, 
attentive though they were, were not once sympathetic. 
Vaguely they had felt that here was something which 
other men — ^more educated — would possibly consider elo- 
quent. They applauded vociferously but perfunctorily, in 
order to appear to understand. 

Presley, for all his love of the people, saw clearly for 
one moment that he was an outsider to their minds. He 
had not helped them nor their cause in the least ; he never 
would. 

Disappointed, bewildered, ashamed, he made his way 
slowly from the Opera House and stood on the steps out- 
side, thoughtful, his head bent. 


553 


A Story of California 

He had failed, thus he told himself. In that moment of 
crisis, that at the time he believed had been an inspira- 
tion, he had failed. The people would not consider him, 
would not believe that he could do them service. Then 
suddenly he seemed to remember. The resolute set of 
his lips returned once more. Pushing his way through 
the crowded streets, he went on towards the stable where 
he had left his pony. 

Meanwhile, in the Opera House, a great commotion 
had occurred. Magnus Derrick had appeared. 

Only a sense of enormous responsibility, of gravest 
duty could have prevailed upon Magnus to have left his 
house and the dead body of his son that day. But he 
was the President of the League, and never since its 
organisation had a meeting of such importance as this 
one been held. He had been in command at the irrigating 
ditch the day before. It was he who had gathered the 
handful of Leaguers together. It was he who must bear 
the responsibility of the fight. 

When he had entered the Opera House, making his 
way down the central aisle towards the stage, a loud 
disturbance had broken out, partly applause, partly a 
meaningless uproar. Many had pressed forward to shake 
his hand, but others were not found wanting who, for- 
merly his staunch supporters, now scenting opposition in 
the air, held back, hesitating, afraid to compromise them- 
selves by adhering to the fortunes of a man whose actions 
might be discredited by the very organisation of which 
he was the head. 

Declining to take the chair of presiding officer which 
Garnett offered him, the Governor withdrew to an angle 
of the stage, where he was joined by Keast. 

This one, still unalterably devoted to Magnus, ac- 
quainted him briefly with the tenor of the speeches that 
had been made. 


554 


The Octopus 

** I am ashamed of them, Governor, he protested in- 
dignantly, to lose their nerve now ! To fail you now ! 
it makes my blood boil. If you had succeeded yester- 
day, if all had gone well, do you think we would have 
heard of any talk of ' assumption of authority,’ or ^ acting 
without advice and consent ’ ? As if there was any time 
to call a meeting of the Executive Committee. If you 
hadn’t acted as you did, the whole county would have 
been grabbed by the Railroad. Get up. Governor, and 
bring ’em all up standing. Just tear ’em all to pieces, 
show ’em that you are the head, the boss. That’s what 
they need. That killing yesterday has shaken the nerve 
clean out of them.” 

For the instant the Governor was taken all aback. 
What, his lieutenants were failing him ? What, he was to 
be questioned, interpolated upon yesterday’s irrepres- 
sible conflict”? Had disaffection appeared in the ranks 
of the League — at this, of all moments ? He put from him 
his terrible grief. The cause was in danger. At the in- 
stant he was the President of the League only, the chief, 
the master. A royal anger surged within him, a wide, 
towering scorn of opposition. He would crush this dis- 
affection in its incipiency, would vindicate himself and 
strengthen the cause at one and the same time. He 
stepped forward and stood in the speaker’s place, turning 
partly toward the audience, partly toward the assembled 
Leaguers. 

Gentlemen of the League,” he began, citizens of 
Bonneville ” 

But at once the silence in which the Governor had 
begun to speak was broken by a shout. It was as though 
his words had furnished a signal. In a certain quarter 
of the gallery, directly opposite, a man arose, and in a 
voice partly of derision, partly of defiance, cried out : 

*'How about the bribery of those two delegates at 


A Story of California 555 

Sacramento? Tell us about that. That’s what we want 
to hear about.” 

A great confusion broke out. The first cry was re- 
peated not only by the original speaker, but by a whole 
group of which he was but a part. Others in the audi- 
ence, however, seeing in the disturbance only the 
clamour of a few Railroad supporters, attempted to howl 
them down, hissing vigorously and exclaiming: 

“ Put ’em out, put ’em out.” 

'' Order, order,” called Garnett, pounding with his 
gavel. The whole Opera House was in an uproar. 

But the interruption of the Governor’s speech was evi- 
dently not unpremeditated. It began to look like a de- 
liberate and planned attack. Persistently, doggedly, the 
group in the gallery vociferated: 

“ Tell us how you bribed the delegates at Sacramento. 
Before you throw mud at the Railroad, let’s see if you 
are clean yourself.” 

Put ’em out, put ’em out.” 

Briber, briber — Magnus Derrick, unconvicted briber ! 
Put him out.” 

Keast, beside himself with anger, pushed down the 
aisle underneath where the recalcitrant group had its 
place and, shaking his fist, called up at them : 

You were paid to break up this meeting. If you 
have anything to say, you will be afforded the oppor- 
tunity, but if you do not let the gentleman proceed, the 
police will be called upon to put you out.” 

But at this, the man who had raised the first shout 
leaned over the balcony rail, and, his face flaming with 
wrath, shouted: 

“ Yah! talk to me of your police. Look out we don’t 
call on them first to arrest youi* President for bribery. 
You and your howl about law and justice and corruption! 
Here ” — he turned to the audience — read about him, 


556 


The Octopus 


read the story of how the Sacramento convention was 
bought by Magnus Derrick, President of the San 
Joaquin League. Here’s the facts printed and proved.” 

With the words, he stooped down and from under his 
seat dragged forth a great package of extra editions of 
the “Bonneville Mercury,” not an hour off the presses. 
Other equally large bundles of the paper appeared in 
the hands of the surrounding group. The strings were 
cut and in handfuls and armfuls the papers were flung 
out over the heads of the audience underneath. The air 
was full of the flutter of the newly printed sheets. They 
swarmed over the rim of the gallery like clouds of mon- 
strous, winged insects, settled upon the heads and into 
the hands of the audience, were passed swiftly from man 
to man, and within five minutes of the first outbreak 
every one in the Opera House had read Genslinger’s de- 
tailed and substantiated account of Magnus Derrick’s 
“ deal ” with the political bosses of the Sacramento con- 
vention. 

Genslinger, after pocketing the Governor’s hush money, 
had “ sold him out.” 

Keast, one quiver of indignation, made his way back 
upon the .stage. The Leaguers were in wild confusion. 
Half the assembly of them were on their feet, bewildered, 
shouting vaguely. From proscenium wall to foyer, the 
Opera House was a tumult of noise. The gleam of the 
thousands of the “ Mercury ” extras was like the flash of 
white caps on a troubled sea. 

Keast faced the audience. 

“Liars,” he shouted, striving with all the power of 
his voice to dominate the clamour, “ liars and slanderers. 
Your paper is the paid organ of the corporation. You 
have not one shadow of proof to back you up. Do you 
choose this, of all times, to heap your calumny upon 
the head of an honourable gentleman, already prostrated 


A Story of California 557 

by your murder of his son? Proofs — we demand your 
proofs ! ” 

^‘WeVe got the very assemblymen themselves/’ came 
back the answering shout. Let Derrick speak. Where 
is he hiding? If this is a lie, let him deny it. Let him 
disprove the charge.” 

'‘Derrick, Derrick,” thundered the Opera House. 

Keast wheeled about. Where was Magnus? He was 
not in sight upon the stage. He had disappeared. 
Crowding through the throng of Leaguers, Keast got 
from off the stage into the wings. Here the crowd 
was no less dense. Nearly every one had a copy of the 
“ Mercury.” It was being read aloud to groups here and 
there, and once Keast overheard the words, “ Say, I won- 
der if this is true, after all? ” 

“ Well, and even if it was,” cried Keast, turning upon 
the speaker, “we should be the last ones to kick. In 
any case, it was done for our benefit. It elected the 
Ranchers’ Commission.” 

“ A lot of benefit we got out of the Ranchers’ Com- 
mission,” retorted the other. 

“ And then,” protested a third speaker, “ that ain’t the 
way to do — if he did do it — bribing legislatures. Why, 
we were bucking against corrupt politics. We couldn’t 
afford to be corrupt.” 

Keast turned away with a gesture of impatience. He 
pushed his way farther on. At last, opening a small 
door in a hallway back of the stage, he came upon 
Magnus. 

The room was tiny. It was a dressing-room. Only 
two nights before it had been used by the leading actress 
of a comic opera troupe which had played for three 
nights at Bonneville. A tattered sofa and limping toilet 
table occupied a third of the space. The air was heavy 
with the smell of stale grease paint, ointments, and sachet. 


558 


The Octopus 


Faded photographs of young women in tights and gauzes 
ornamented the mirror and the walls. Underneath the 
sofa was an old pair of corsets. The spangled skirt of a 
pink dress, turned inside out, hung against the wall. 

And in the midst of such environment, surrounded by 
an excited group of men who gesticulated and shouted 
in his very face, pale, alert, agitated, his thin lips pressed 
tightly together, stood Magnus Derrick. 

“ Here,’’ cried Keast, as he entered, closing the door 
behind him, “ where’s the Governor ? Here, Magnus, 
I’ve been looking for you. The crowd has gone wild 
out there. You’ve got to talk ’em down. Come out 
there and give those blacklegs the lie. They are saying 
you are hiding.” 

But before Magnus could reply, Garnett turned to 
Keast. 

“Well, that’s what we want him to do, and he won’t 
do it.” 

“ Yes, yes,” cried the half-dozen men who crowded 
around Magnus, “ yes, that’s what we want him to do.” 

Keast turned to Magnus. 

“ Why, what’s all this. Governor ? ” he exclaimed. 
“You’ve got to answer that. Hey? why don’t you give 
’em the lie?” 

I — I,” Magnus loosened the collar about his throat, 
“ it is a lie. I will not stoop — I would not — would be — 
it would be beneath my — ^my — it would be beneath me.” 

Keast stared in amazement. Was this the Great Man, 
the Leader, indomitable, of Roman integrity, of Roman 
valour, before whose voice whole conventions had 
quailed? Was it possible he was afraid to face those 
hired villifiers? 

“Well, how about this?” demanded Garnett suddenly. 
“ It is a lie, isn’t it? That Commission was elected hon* 
estly, wasn’t it?” 


559 


A Story of California 

** How dare you, sir ! Magnus burst out. ** How dare 
you question me — call me to account! Please under- 
stand, sir, that I tolerate 

“ Oh, quit it ! ” cried a voice from the group. You 
can’t scare us. Derrick. That sort of talk was well 
enough once, but it don’t go any more. We want a yes 
or no answer.” 

It was gone — that old-time power of mastery, that 
faculty of command. The ground crumbled beneath his 
feet. Long since it had been, by his own hand, under- 
mined. Authority was gone. Why keep up this miser- 
able sham any longer? Could they not read the lie in 
his face, in his voice? What a folly to maintain the 
wretched pretence I He had failed. He was ruined. 
Harran was gone. His ranch would soon go ; his money 
was gone. Lyman was worse than dead. His own 
honour had been prostituted. Gone, gone, everything he 
held dear, gone, lost, and swept away in that fierce strug- 
gle. And suddenly and all in a moment the last remain- 
ing shells of the fabric of his being, the sham that had 
stood already wonderfully long, cracked and collapsed. 

‘‘Was the Commission honestly elected?” insisted 
Garnett. “ Were the delegates — did you bribe the dele- 
gates ? ” 

“ We were obliged to shut our eyes to means,” faltered 
Magnus. “There was no other way to — ” Then sud- 
denly and with the last dregs of his resolution, he con- 
cluded with: “Yes, I gave them two thousand dollars 
each.” 

“Oh, hell! Oh, my God!” exclaimed Keast, sitting 
swiftly down upon the ragged sofa. 

There was a long silence. A sense of poignant em- 
barrassment descended upon those present. No one knew 
what to say or where to look. Garnett, with a laboured 
attempt at nonchalance^ murmured ; 


560 The Octopus 

" I see. Well, that’s what I was trying to get at. Yes, 
I see.” 

“ Well,” said Gethings at length, bestirring himself, 
“ I guess ril go home.” 

There was a movement. The group broke up, the men 
making for the door. One by one they went out. The 
last to go was Keast. He came up to Magnus and shook 
the Governor’s limp hand. 

“ Good-bye, Governor,” he said. ** Fll see you again 
pretty soon. Don’t let this discourage you. They’ll 
come around all right after a while. So long.” 

He went out, shutting the door. 

And seated in the one chair of the room, Magnus Der- 
rick remained a long time, looking at his face In the 
cracked mirror that for so many years had reflected the 
painted faces of soubrettes, in this atmosphere of stale 
perfume and mouldy rice powder. 

It had come — his fall, his ruin. After so many years 
of integrity and honest battle, his life had ended here — 
in an actress’s dressing-room, deserted by his friends, his 
son murdered, his dishonesty known, an old man, broken, 
discarded, discredited, and abandoned. 

Before nightfall of that day, Bonneville was further ex- 
cited by an astonishing bit of news. S. Behrman lived 
in a detached house at some distance from the town, sur- 
rounded by a grove of live oak and eucalyptus trees. At 
a little after half-past six, as he was sitting down to his 
supper, a bomb was thrown through the window of his 
dining-room, exploding near the doorway leading into 
the hall. The room was wrecked and nearly every win- 
dow of the house shattered. By a miracle, S. Behrman, 
himself, remained untouched. 


VIII 


On a certain afternoon in the early part of July, about 
a month after the fight at the irrigating ditch and the 
mass meeting at Bonneville, Cedarquist, at the moment 
opening his mail in his office in San Francisco, was gen- 
uinely surprised to receive a visit from Presley. 

'‘Well, upon my word, Pres,’’ exclaimed the manu- 
facturer, as the young man came in through the door 
that the office boy held open for him, “ upon my word, 
have you been sick? Sit down, my boy. Have a glass 
of sherry. I always keep a bottle here.” 

Presley accepted the wine and sank into the depths of 
a great leather chair near by. 

“Sick?” he answered. “Yes, I have been sick. I’m 
sick now. I’m gone to pieces, sir.” 

His manner was the extreme of listlessness — the list- 
lessness of great fatigue. “ Well, well,” observed the 
other. “ I’m right sorry to hear that. What’s the 
trouble. Pres ? ” 

“ Oh, nerves mostly, I suppose, and my head, and 
insomnia, and weakness, a general collapse all along the 
line, the doctor tells me. ' Over-cerebration,’ he says ; 
* over-excitement.’ I fancy I rather narrowly missed 
brain fever.” 

“ Well, I can easily suppose it,” answered Cedarquist 
gravely, “ after all you have been through.” 

Presley closed his eyes — they were sunken in circles of 
dark brown flesh — and pressed a thin hand to the back 
of his head. 

36 


562 


The Octopus 

** It Is a nightmare,” he murmured. ** A frightful night- 
mare, and it’s not over yet. You have heard of it all 
only through the newspaper reports. But down there, at 
Bonneville, at Los Muertos — oh, you can have no idea 
of it, of the misery caused by the defeat of the ranchers 
and by this decision of the Supreme Court that dis- 
possesses them all. We had gone on hoping to the last 
that we would win there. We had thought that in the 
Supreme Court of the United States, at least, we could 
find justice. And the news of its decision was the worst, 
last blow of all. For Magnus it was the last — positively 
the very last.” 

Poor, poor Derrick,” murmured Cedarquist. ** Tell 
me about him, Pres. How does he take it? What is he 
going to do? ” 

'' It beggars him, sir. He sunk a great deal more than 
any of us believed in his ranch, when he resolved to 
turn off most of the tenants and farm the ranch himself. 
Then the fight he made against the Railroad in the Courts 
and the political campaign he went into, to get Lyman on 
the Railroad Commission, took more of it. The money 
that Genslinger blackmailed him of, it seems, was about 
all he had left. He had been gambling — you know the 
Governor — on another bonanza crop this year to recoup 
him. Well, the bonanza came right enough — just in 
time for S. Behrman and the Railroad to grab it. Mag- 
nus is ruined.” 

What a tragedy ! what a tragedy ! ” murmured the 
other. Lyman turning rascal, Harran killed, and now 
this ; and all within so short a time — all at the same time, 
you might almost say.” 

‘Mf i-t had only killed him,” continued Presley; ‘‘but 
that is the worst of it.” 

“ How the worst ? ” 

“Pm afraid, honestly. Pm afraid it is going to turn 


A Story of California 563 

his wits, sir. It^s broken him; oh, you should see him, 
you should see him. A shambling, stooping, trembling 
old man, in his dotage already. He sits all day in the 
dining-room, turning over papers, sorting them, tying 
them up, opening them again, forgetting them — all 
fumbling and mumbling and confused. And at table 
sometimes he forgets to eat. And, listen, you know, from 
the house we can hear the trains whistling for the Long 
Trestle. As often as that happens the Governor seems 
to be — oh, I don’t know, frightened. He will sink his 
head between his shoulders, as though he were dodging 
something, and he won’t fetch a long breath again till 
the train is out of hearing. He seems to have conceived 
an abject, unreasoned terror of the Railroad.” 

“But he will have to leave Los Muertos now, of 
course ? ” 

“Yes, they will all have to leave. They have a fortnight 
more. The few tenants that were still on Los Muertos 
are leaving. That is one thing that brings me to the 
city. The family of one of the men who was killed — 
Hooven was his name — have come to the city to find 
work. I think they are liable to be in great distress, 
unless they have been wonderfully lucky, and I am trying 
to find them in order to look after them.” 

“ You need looking after yourself. Pres.” 

“ Oh, once away from Bonneville and the sight of the 
ruin there. I’m better. But I intend to go away. And 
that makes me think, I came to ask you if you could 
help me. If you would let me take passage on one of 
your wheat ships. The Doctor says an ocean voyage 
would set me up.” 

“Why, certainly. Pres,” declared Cedarquist. “But 
I’m sorry you’ll have to go. We expected to have you 
down in the country with us this winter.” 

Presley shook his head. 


5^4 


The Octopus 

No/' he answered. ** I must go. Even if I had all 
my health, I could not bring myself to stay in California 
just now. If you can introduce me to one of your 
captains 

With pleasure. When do you want to go ? You 
may have to wait a few weeks. Our first ship won’t 
clear till the end of the month.” 

That would do very well. Thank you, sir.” 

But Cedarquist was still interested in the land troubles 
of the Bonneville farmers, and took the first occasion 
to ask: 

So, the Railroad are in possession on most of the 
ranches ? ” 

‘‘On all of them,” returned Presley. ‘‘The League 
went all to pieces, so soon as Magnus was forced to 
resign. The old story — they got quarrelling among 
themselves. Somebody started a compromise party, and 
upon that issue a new president was elected. Then there 
were defections. The Railroad offered to lease the lands 
in question to the ranchers — the ranchers who owned 
them,” he exclaimed bitterly, “ and because the terms 
were nominal — almost nothing — plenty of the men took 
the chance of saving themselves. And, of course, once 
signing the lease, they acknowledged the Railroad’s title. 
But the road would not lease to Magnus. S. Behrman 
takes over Los Muertos in a few weeks now.” 

“No doubt, the road made over their title in the prop- 
erty to him,” observed Cedarquist, “as a reward of his 
services.” 

“No doubt,” murmured Presley wearily. He rose 
to go. 

“By the way,” said Cedarquist, “what have you on 
hand for, let us say, Friday evening? Won’t you dine 
with us then? The girls are going to the country Mon- 
day of next week, and you probably won’t see them 


A Story of California 565 

again for some time if you take that ocean voyage of 
yours/" 

“ Fm afraid I shall be very poor company, sir,” 
hazarded Presley. “ There’s no ‘ go," no life in me at 
all these days. I am like a clock with a broken spring.’" 

Not broken. Pres, my boy,’" urged the other, '' only 
run down. Try and see if we can"t wind you up a bit. 
Say that we can expect you. We dine at seven."" 

“ Thank you, sir. Till Friday at seven, then."" 

Regaining the street, Presley sent his valise to his club 
(where he had engaged a room) by a messenger boy, 
and boarded a Castro Street car. Before leaving Bonne- 
ville, he had ascertained, by strenuous enquiry, Mrs. 
Hooven"s address in the city, and thitherward he now 
directed his steps. 

When Presley had told Cedarquist that he was ill, that 
he was jaded, worn out, he had only told half the truth. 
Exhausted he was, nerveless, weak, but this apathy was 
still invaded from time to time with fierce incursions of 
a spirit of unrest and revolt, reactions, momentary re- 
turns of the blind, undirected energy that at one time had 
prompted him to a vast desire to acquit himself of some 
terrible deed of readjustment, just what, he could not 
say, some terrifying martyrdom, some awe-inspiring im- 
molation, consummate, incisive, conclusive. He fancied 
himself to be fired with the purblind, mistaken heroism 
of the anarchist, hurling his victim to destruction with 
full knowledge that the catastrophe shall sweep him also 
into the vortex it creates. 

But his constitutional irresoluteness obstructed his path 
continually; brain-sick, weak of will, emotional, timid 
even, he temporised, procrastinated, brooded ; came to de- 
cisions in the dark hours of the night, only to abandon 
them in the morning. 

Once only he had acted. And at this moment, as he 


566 The Octopus 

I 

was carried through the windy, squalid streets, he trem- 
bled at the remembrance of it. The horror of what 
might have been ” incompatible with the vengeance whose 
minister he fancied he was, oppressed him. The scene 
perpetually reconstructed itself in his imagination. He 
saw himself under the shade of the encompassing trees 
and shrubbery, creeping on his belly toward the house, 
in the suburbs of Bonneville, watching his chances, seizing 
opportunities, spying upon the lighted windows where 
the raised curtains afforded a view of the interior. Then 
had come the appearance in the glare of the gas of the 
figure of the man for whom he waited. He saw himself 
rise and run forward. He remembered the feel and 
weight in his hand of Caraher’s bomb — the six inches of 
plugged gas pipe. His upraised arm shot forward. 
There was a shiver of smashed window-panes, then — a 
void — a red whirl of confusion, the air rent, the ground 
rocking, himself flung headlong, flung off the spinning 
circumference of things out into a place of terror and 
vacancy and darkness. And then after a long time the 
return of reason, the consciousness that his feet were 
set upon the road to Los Muertos, and that he was fleeing 
terror-stricken, gasping, all but insane with hysteria. 
Then the never-to-be-forgotten night that ensued, when 
he descended into the pit, horrified at what he supposed 
he had done, at one moment ridden with remorse, at an- 
other raging against his own feebleness, his lack of cour- 
age, his wretched, vacillating spirit. But morning had 
come, and with it the knowledge that he had failed, and 
the baser assurance that he was not even remotely sus- 
pected. His own escape had been no less miraculous 
than that of his enemy, and he had fallen on his knees 
in inarticulate prayer, weeping, pouring out his thanks 
to God for the deliverance from the gulf to the very 
brink of which his feet had been drawn. 


A Story of California 


567 


After this, however, there had come to Presley a deep- 
rooted suspicion that he was — of all human beings, the 
most wretched — a failure. Everything to which he had 
set his mind failed — his great epic, his efforts to help 
the people who surrounded him, even his attempted de- 
struction of the enemy, all these had come to nothing. 
Girding his shattered strength together, he resolved upon 
one last attempt to live up to the best that was in him, 
and to that end had set himself to lift out of the despair 
into which they had been thrust, the bereaved family of 
the German, Hooven. 

After all was over, and Hooven, together with the 
seven others who had fallen at the irrigating ditch, was 
buried in the Bonneville cemetery, Mrs. Hooven, asking 
no one’s aid or advice, and taking with her Minna and 
little Hilda, had gone to San Francisco — had gone to find 
work, abandoning Los Muertos and her home forever. 
Presley only learned of the departure of the family after 
fifteen days had elapsed. 

At once, however, the suspicion forced itself upon him 
that Mrs. Hooven — and Minna, too for the matter of that 
• — country-bred, ignorant of city ways, might easily come 
to grief in the hard, huge struggle of city life. This 
suspicion had swiftly hardened to a conviction, acting 
at last upon which Presley had followed them to San 
Francisco, bent upon finding and assisting them. 

The house to which Presley was led by the address 
in his memorandum book was a cheap but fairly decent 
hotel near the power house of the Castro Street cable. 
He inquired for Mrs. Hooven. 

The landlady recollected the Hoovens perfectly. 

** German woman, with a little girl-baby, and an older 
daughter, sure. The older daughter was main pretty. 
Sure I remember them, but they ain’t here no more. 
They left a week ago. I had to ask them for their room. 


568 The Octopus 

As it was, they owed a week’s room-rent. Mister, I 
can’t afford ” 

Well, do you know where they went? Did you hear 
what address they had their trunk expressed to ? ” 

“ Ah, yes, their trunk,” vociferated the woman, clap- 
ping her hands to her hips, her face purpling. Their 
trunk, ah, sure. I got their trunk, and what are you go- 
ing to do about it ? I’m holding it till I get my money. 
What have you got to say about it ? Let’s hear it.” 

Presley turned away with a gesture of discouragement, 
his heart sinking. On the street corner he stood for a 
long time, frowning in trouble and perplexity. His sus- 
picions had been only too well founded. So long ago 
as a week, the Hoovens had exhausted all their little 
store of money. For seven days now they had been 
without resources, unless, indeed, work had been found ; 
** and what,” he asked himself, “ what work in God’s 
name could they find to do here in the city? ” 

Seven days ! He quailed at the thought of it. Seven 
days without money, knowing not a soul in all that 
swarming city. Ignorant of city life as both Minna and 
her mother were, would they even realise that there were 
institutions built and generously endowed for just such 
as they? He knew them to have their share of pride, 
the dogged sullen pride of the peasant ; even if they knew 
of charitable organisations, would they, could they bring 
themselves to apply there? A poignant anxiety thrust 
itself sharply into Presley’s heart. Where were they 
now? Where had they slept last night? Where break- 
fasted this morning? Had there even been any break- 
fast this morning? Had there even been any bed last 
night? Lost, and forgotten in the plexus of the city’s 
life, what had befallen them? Towards what fate was 
the ebb tide of the streets drifting them? 

Was this to be still another theme wrought out by iron 


A Story of California 569 

hands upon the old, the world-old, world-wide keynote? 
How far were the consequences of that dreadful day's 
work at the irrigating ditch to reach? To what length 
was the tentacle of the monster to extend? 

Presley returned toward the central, the business quar- 
ter of the city, alternately formulating and dismissing 
from his mind plan after plan for the finding and aiding 
of Mrs. Hooven and her daughters. He reached Mont- 
gomery Street, and turned toward his club, his imagina- 
tion once more reviewing all the causes and circumstances 
of the great battle of which for the last eighteen months 
he had been witness. 

All at once he paused, his eye caught by a sign affixed 
to the wall just inside the street entrance of i, huge office 
building, and smitten with an idea, stood for an instant 
motionless, upon the sidewalk, his eyes wide, his fists 
shut tight. 

The building contained the General Office of the Pacific 
and Southwestern Railroad. Large though it was, it 
nevertheless, was not pretentious, and during his visits 
to the city, Presley must have passed it, unheeding, many 
times. 

But for all that it was the stronghold of the enemy — 
the centre of all that vast ramifying system of arteries 
that drained the life-blood of the State; the nucleus of 
Che web in which so many lives, so many fortunes, so 
many destinies had been enmeshed. From this place — • 
so he told himself — ^had emanated that policy of extor- 
tion, oppression and injustice that little by little hadi 
shouldered the ranchers from their rights, till, their backs 
to the wall, exasperated and despairing they had turned 
and fought and died. From here had come the orders 
to S. Behrman, to Cyrus Ruggles and to Genslinger, the 
orders that had brought Dyke to a prison, that had killed 
Annixter, that had ruined Magnus, that had corrupted 


570 The Octopus 

Lyman. Here was the keep of the castle, and here, be- 
hind one of those many windows, in one of those many 
offices, his hand upon the levers of his mighty engine, 
sat the master, Shelgrim himself. 

Instantly, upon the realisation of this fact an ungovern- 
able desire seized upon Presley, an inordinate curiosity. 
Why not see, face to face, the man whose power was 
so vast, whose will was so resistless, whose potency for 
evil so limitless, the man who for so long and so hope- 
lessly they had all been fighting. By reputation he knew 
him to be approachable ; why should he not then approach 
him? Presley took his resolution in both hands. If he 
failed to act upon this impulse, he knew he would never 
act at all. His heart beating, his breath coming short, 
he entered the building, and in a few moments found him- 
self seated in an ante-room, his eyes fixed with hypnotic 
intensity upon the frosted pane of an adjoining door, 
♦ whereon in gold letters was inscribed the word, “ Presi- 
dent'* 

In the end, Presley had been surprised to find that 
Shelgrim was still in. It was already very late, after six 
o’clock, and the other offices in the building were in the 
act of closing. Many of them were already deserted. 
At every instant, through the open door of the ante- 
room, he caught a glimpse of clerks, office boys, book- 
keepers, and other employees hurrying towards the stairs 
and elevators, quitting business for the day. Shelgrim, 
it seemed, still remained at his desk, knowing no fatigue, 
requiring no leisure. 

“ What time does Mr. Shelgrim usually go home ? ” 
inquired Presley of the young man who sat ruling forms 
at the table in the ante-room. 

'^Anywhere between half-past six and seven,” the 
other answered, adding, Very often he comes back in 
the evening.” 


571 


A Story of California 

And the man was seventy years old. Presley could not 
repress a murmur of astonishment. Not only mentally, 
then, was the President of the P. and S. W. a giant. Sev- 
enty years of age and still at his post, holding there with 
the energy, with a concentration of purpose that would 
have wrecked the health and impaired the mind of many 
men in the prime of their manhood. 

But the next instant Presley set his teeth. 

“ It is an ogre’s vitality,” he said to himself. “ Just 
so is the man-eating tiger strong. The man should have 
energy who has sucked the life-blood from an entire 
People.” 

A little electric bell on the wall near at hand trilled 
a warning. The young man who was ruling forms laid 
down his pen, and opening the door of the President’s 
office, thrust in his head, then after a word exchanged 
with the unseen occupant of the room, he swung the door 
wide, saying to Presley: 

Mr. Shelgrim will see you, sir.” 

Presley entered a large, well lighted, but singularly 
barren office. A well-worn carpet was on the floor, two 
steel engravings hung against the wall, an extra chair 
or two stood near a large, plain, littered table. That 
was absolutely all, unless he excepted the corner wash- 
stand, on which was set a pitcher of ice water, covered 
with a clean, stiff napkin. A man, evidently some sort 
of manager’s assistant, stood at the end of the table, 
leaning on the back of one of the chairs. Shelgrim him- 
self sat at the table. 

He was large, almost to massiveness. An iron-grey 
beard and a mustache that completely hid the mouth 
covered the lower part of his face. His eyes were a 
pale blue, and a little watery; here and there upon his 
face were moth spots. But the enormous breadth of the 
shoulders was what, at first, most vividly forced itself 


572 


The Octopus 

upon Presley’s notice. Never had he seen a broader 
man; the neck, however, seemed in a manner to have 
settled into the shoulders, and furthermore they were 
humped and rounded, as if to bear great responsibilities, 
and great abuse. 

At the moment he was wearing a silk skull-cap, pushed 
to one side and a little awry, a frock coat of broadcloth, 
with long sleeves, and a waistcoat from the lower buttons 
of which the cloth was worn and, upon the edges, rubbed 
away, showing the metal underneath. At the top this 
waistcoat was unbuttoned and in the shirt front disclosed 
were two pearl studs. 

Presley, uninvited, unnoticed apparently, sat down. 
The assistant manager was in the act of making a report. 
His voice was not lowered, and Presley heard every word 
that was spoken. 

The report proved interesting. It concerned a book- 
keeper in the office of the auditor of disbursements. It 
seems he was at most times thoroughly reliable, hard- 
working, industrious, ambitious. But at long intervals 
the vice of drunkenness seized upon the man and for 
three days rode him like a hag. Not only during the 
period of this intemperance, but for the few days imme- 
diately following, the man was useless, his work un- 
trustworthy. He was a family man and earnestly strove 
to rid himself of his habit ; he was, when sober, valuable. 
In consideration of these facts, he had been pardoned 
again and again. 

“You remember, Mr. Shelgrim,'’ observed the man- 
ager, “that you have more than once interfered in his 
behalf, when we were disposed to let him go. I don’t 
think we can do anything with him, sir. He promises 
to reform continually, but it is the same old story. This 
last time we saw nothing of him for four days. Hon- 
estly, Mr. Shelgrim, I think we ought to let Tentell out. 


573 


A Story of California 

We can’t afford to keep him. He is really losing us too 
much money. Here’s the order ready now, if you care 
to let it go.” 

There was a pause. Presley all attention, listened 
breathlessly. The assistant manager laid before his 
President the typewritten order in question. The silence 
lengthened ; in the hall outside, the wrought-iron door of 
the elevator cage slid to with a clash. Shelgrim did 
not look at the order. He turned his swivel chair about 
and faced the windows behind him, looking out with 
unseeing eyes. At last he spoke : 

“ Tentell has a family, wife and three children. » « « 
How much do we pay him ? ” 

“ One hundred and thirty.” 

‘‘Let’s double that, or say two hundred and fifty^. 
Let’s see how that will do.” 

“ Why — of course — if you say so, but really, Mr. Shel- 
grim ” 

“Well, we’ll try that, anyhow.” 

Presley had not time to readjust his perspective to this 
new point of view of the President of the P. and S. W. 
before the assistant manager had withdrawn. Shelgrim 
wrote a few memoranda on his calendar pad, and signed 
a couple of letters before turning his attention to Presley. 
At last, he looked up and fixed the young man with a 
direct, grave glance. He did not smile. It was some 
time before he spoke. At last, he said: 

“Well, sir.” 

Presley advanced and took a chair nearer at hand. 
Shelgrim turned and from his desk picked up and con- 
sulted Presley’s card. Presley observed that he read 
without the use of glasses. 

“You,” he said, again facing about, “you are the 
young man who wrote the poem called ‘ The Toilers.’ ” 

“Yes, sir.” 


574 


The Octopus 

*'It seems to have made a great deal of talk. Fve 
read it, and I’ve seen the picture in Cedarquist’s house, 
the picture you took the idea from.” 

Presley, his senses never more alive, observed that, 
curiously enough, Shelgrim did not move his body. His 
arms moved, and his head, but the great bulk of the man 
remained immobile In Its place, and as the interview 
proceeded and this peculiarity emphasised itself, Presley 
began to conceive the odd idea that Shelgrim had, as it 
were, placed his body in the chair to rest, while his head 
and brain and hands went on working independently. 
A saucer of shelled filberts stood near his elbow, and 
from time to time he picked up one of these In a great 
thumb and forefinger and put It between his teeth. 

** I’ve seen the picture called * The Toilers,’ ” continued 
Shelgrim, ** and of the two, I like the picture better than 
the poem.” 

*'The picture is by a master,” Presley hastened to 
interpose. 

“ And for that reason,” said Shelgrim, ‘‘ it leaves noth- 
ing more to be said. You might just as well have kept 
quiet. There’s only one best way to say anything. And 
what has made the picture of ' The Toilers ’ great is that 
the artist said in it the best that could be said on the 
subject.” 

“ I had never looked at it in just that light,” observed 
Presley. He was confused, all at sea, embarrassed. 
What he had expected to find in Shelgrim, he could not 
have exactly said. But he had been prepared to come 
upon an ogre, a brute, a terrible man of blood and iron, 
and Instead had discovered a sentimentalist and an art 
critic. No standards of measurement In his mental equip- 
ment would apply to the actual man, and it began to 
dawn upon him that possibly It was not because these 
standards were different in kind, but that they were 


575 


A Story of California 

lamentably deficient in size. He began to see that here 
was the man not only great, but large; many-sided, of 
vast sympathies, who understood with equal intelligence, 
the human nature in an habitual drunkard, the ethics 
of a masterpiece of painting, and the financiering and 
operation of ten thousand miles of railroad. 

“ I had never looked at it in just that light,” repeated 
Presley. “ There is a great deal in what you say.” 

“ If I am to listen,” continued Shelgrim, to that kind 
of talk, I prefer to listen to it first hand. I would rather 
listen to what the great French painter has to say, than 
to what you have to say about what he has already 
said.” 

His speech, loud and emphatic at first, when the idea 
of what he had to say was fresh in his mind, lapsed and 
lowered itself at the end of his sentences as though he 
had already abandoned and lost interest in that thought, 
so that the concluding words were indistinct, beneath the 
grey beard and mustache. Also at times there was the 
faintest suggestion of a lisp. 

“ I wrote that poem,” hazarded Presley, “ at a time 
when I was terribly upset. I live,” he concluded, “ or did 
live on the Los Muertos ranch in Tulare County — Mag- 
nus Derrick’s ranch.” 

“ The Railroad’s ranch leased to Mr. Derrick,” ob- 
served Shelgrim. 

Presley spread out his hands with a helpless, resigned 
gesture. 

'"And,” continued the President of the P. and S. W. 
with grave intensity, looking at Presley keenly, “ I sup- 
pose you believe I am a grand old rascal.” 

I believe,” answered Presley, I am persuaded ” 

He hesitated, searching for his words. 

Believe this, young man,” exclaimed Shelgrim, lay- 
ing a thick powerful forefinger on the table to emphasise 


576 


The Octopus 


his words, “ try to believe this — to begin with — that RaiU 
roads build themselves. Where there is a demand sooner 
or later there will be a supply. Mr. Derrick, does he 
grow his wheat ? The Wheat grows itself. What does 
he count for? Does he supply the force? What do I 
count for? Do I build the Railroad? You are dealing 
with forces, young man, when you speak of Wheat and 
the Railroads, not with men. There is the Wheat, the 
supply. It must be carried to feed the People. There 
is the demand. The Wheat is one force, the Railroad, 
another, and there is the law that governs them — supply 
and demand. Men have only little to do in the whole 
business. Complications may arise, conditions that bear 
hard on the individual — crush him maybe — but the Wheat 
ivill be carried to feed the people as inevitably as it will 
grow. If you want to fasten the blame of the affair at 
Los Muertos on any one person, you will make a mistake. 
Blame conditions, not men.” 

But — but,” faltered Presley, you are the head, you 
control the road.” 

You are a very young man. Control the road ! Can 
I stop it? I can go into bankruptcy if you like. But 
otherwise if I run my road, as a business proposition, 
I can do nothing. I can not control it. It is a force 
born out of certain conditions, and I — no man — can stop 
it or control it. Can your Mr. Derrick stop the Wheat 
growing ? He can burn his crop, or he can give it away, 
or sell it for a cent a bushel — ^just as I could go into 
bankruptcy — but otherwise his Wheat must grow. Can 
any one stop the Wheat? Well, then no more can I stop 
the Road.” 

Presley regained the street stupefied, his brain in 
whirl. This new idea, this new conception dumfounded 
him. Somehow, he could not deny it. It rang with the 
clear reverberation of truth. Was no one, then, to blam^ 


577 


A Story of California 

for the horror at the irrigating ditch? Forces, condi- 
tions, laws of supply and demand — were these then the 
enemies, after all? Not enemies; there was no malevo- 
lence in Nature. Colossal indifference only, a vast trend 
toward appointed goals. Nature was, then, a gigantic 
engine, a vast cyclopean power, huge, terrible, a leviathan 
with a heart of steel, knowing no compunction, no for- 
giveness, no tolerance; crushing out the human atom 
standing in its way, with nirvanic calm, the agony of de- 
struction sending never a jar, never the faintest tremour 
through all that prodigious mechanism of wheels and 
cogs. 

He went to his club and ate his supper alone, in gloomy 
agitation. He was sombre, brooding, lost in a dark maze 
of gloomy reflections. However, just as he was rising 
from the table an incident occurred that for the moment 
roused him and sharply diverted his mind. 

His table had been placed near a window and as he was 
sipping his after-dinner coffee, he happened to glance 
across the street. His eye was at once caught by the sight 
of a familiar figure. Was it Minna Hooven? The figure 
turned the street corner and was lost to sight ; but it had 
been strangely like. On the moment, Presley had risen 
from the table and, clapping on his hat, had hurried into 
the streets, where the lamps were already beginning to 
shine. 

But search though he would, Presley could not again 
come upon the young woman, in whom he fancied he 
had seen the daughter of the unfortunate German. At 
last, he gave up the hunt, and returning to his club — at 
this hour almost deserted — smoked a few cigarettes, 
vainly attempted to read from a volume of essays in the 
library, and at last, nervous, distraught, exhausted, 
retired to his bed. 

But none the less, Presley had not been mistaken. The 


578 The Octopus 

girl whom he had tried to follow had been indeed Minna 
Hooven. 

When Minna, a week before this time, had returned 
to the lodging house on Castro Street, after a day^s un^ 
successful effort to find employment, and was told that 
her mother and Hilda had gone, she was struck speech- 
less with surprise and dismay. She had never before 
been in any town larger than Bonneville, and now knew 
not which way to turn nor how to account for the dis- 
appearance of her mother and little Hilda. That the 
landlady was on the point of turning them out, she un- 
derstood, but it had been agreed that the family should 
be allowed to stay yet one more day, in the hope that 
Minna would find work. Of this she reminded the land- 
lady. But this latter at once launched upon her such a 
torrent of vituperation, that the girl was frightened to 
speechless submission. 

'‘Oh, oh,*’ she faltered, "I know. I am sorry. I 
know we owe you money, but where did my mother go ? 
I only want to find her.” 

" Oh, I ain’t going to be bothered,” shrilled the other. 
" How do I know ? ” 

The truth of the matter was that Mrs. Hooven, afraid 
to stay in the vicinity of the house, after her eviction, 
and threatened with arrest by the landlady if she per- 
sisted in hanging around, had left with the woman a note 
scrawled on an old blotter, to be given to Minna when she 
returned. This the landlady had lost. To cover her con- 
fusion, she affected a vast indignation, and a turbulent, 
irascible demeanour. 

" I ain’t going to be bothered with such cattle as you,” 
she vociferated in Minna’s face. " I don’t know where 
your folks is. Me, I only have dealings with honest peo- 
ple. I ain’t got a word to say so long as the rent is paid. 
But when I’m soldiered out of a week’s lodging, then 


579 


A Story of Califomb 

Fm done. You get right along now. I don’t know you. 
I ain’t going to have my place get a bad name by having 
any South of Market Street chippies hanging around. 
You get along, or I’ll call an officer.” 

Minna sought the street, her head in a whirl. It was 
about five o’clock. In her pocket was thirty-five cents, 
all she had in the world. What now? 

All at once, the Terror of the City, that blind, unrea- 
soned fear that only the outcast knows, swooped upon 
her, and clutched her vulture-wise, by the throat. 

Her first few days’ experience in the matter of finding 
employment, had taught her just what she might expect 
from this new world upon which she had been thrown. 
What was to become of her ? What was she to do, where 
was she to go ? Unanswerable, grim questions, and now 
she no longer had herself to fear for. Her mother and 
the baby, little Hilda, both of them equally unable to look 
after themselves, what was to become of them, where 
were they gone? Lost, lost, all of them, herself as well. 
But she rallied herself, as she walked along. The idea 
of her starving, of her mother and Hilda starving, was 
out of all reason. Of course, it would not come to that, 
of course not. It was not thus that starvation came. 
Something would happen, of course, it would — in time. 
But meanwhile, meanwhile, how to get through this ap- 
proaching night, and the next few days. That was the 
thing to think of just now. 

The suddenness of it all was what most unnerved her. 
During all the nineteen years of her life, she had never 
known what it meant to shift for herself. Her father 
had always sufficed for the family ; he had taken care of 
her, then, all of a sudden, her father had been killed, 
her mother snatched from her. Then all of a sudden 
there was no help anywhere. Then all of a sudden a 
terrible voice demanded of her, ‘‘Now just what can 


580 The Octopus 

you do to keep yourself alive?” Life faced her; she 
looked the huge stone image squarely in the lustreless 
eyes. 

It was nearly twilight. Minna, for the sake of avoid- 
ing observation — for it seemed to her that now a thou- 
sand prying glances followed her — assumed a matter-of- 
fact demeanour, and began to walk briskly toward the 
business quarter of the town. 

She was dressed neatly enough, in a blue cloth skirt 
with a blue plush belt, fairly decent shoes, once her moth- 
er’s, a pink shirt waist, and jacket and a straw sailor. She 
was, in an unusual fashion, pretty. Even her troubles 
had not dimmed the bright light of her pale, greenish- 
blue eyes, nor faded the astonishing redness of her lips, 
nor hollowed her strangely white face. Her blue-black 
hair was trim. She carried her well-shaped, well-round- 
ed figure erectly. Even in her distress, she observed that 
men looked keenly at her, and sometimes after her as 
she went along. But this she noted with a dim sub-con- 
scious faculty. The real Minna, harassed, terrified, 
lashed with a thousand anxieties, kept murmuring under 
her breath : 

“What shall I do, what shall I do, oh, what shall I 
do, now?” 

After an interminable walk, she gained Kearney 
Street, and held it till the well-lighted, well-kept neigh- 
bourhood of the shopping district gave place to the vice- 
crowded saloons and concert halls of the Barbary Coast. 
She turned aside in avoidance of this, only to plunge into 
the purlieus of Chinatown, whence only she emerged, 
panic-stricken and out of breath, after a half hour of 
never-to-be-forgotten terrors, and at a time when it had 
grown quite dark. 

On the comer of California and Dupont streets, she 
Stood a long moment, pondering. 


A Story of California 581 

“ I must do something/’ she said to herself. I must 
do something” 

She was tired out by now, and the idea occurred to 
her to enter the Catholic church in whose shadow she 
stood, and sit down and rest. This she did. The even- 
ing service was just being concluded. JBut long after 
the priests and altar boys had departed from the chancel, 
Minna still sat in the dim, echoing interior, confronting 
her desperate situation as best she might. 

Two or three hours later, the sexton woke her. The 
church was being closed; she must leave. Once more, 
chilled with the sharp night air, numb with long sitting 
in the same attitude, still oppressed with drowsiness, con- 
fused, frightened, Minna found herself on the pavement. 
She began to be hungry, and, at length, yielding to the 
demand that every moment grew more imperious, bought 
and eagerly devoured a five-cent bag of fruit. Then, 
once more she took up the round of walking. 

At length, in an obscure street that branched from 
Kearney Street, near the corner of the Plaza, she came 
upon an illuminated sign, bearing the inscription, “Beds 
for the Night, 15 and 25 cents. 

Fifteen cents! Could she afford it? It would leave 
her with only that much more, that much between her- 
self and a state of privation of which she dared not think ; 
and, besides, the forbidding look of the building fright- 
ened her. It was dark, gloomy, dirty, a place sugges- 
tive of obscure crimes and hidden terrors. For twenty 
minutes or half an hour, she hesitated, walking twice and 
three times around the block. At last, she made up her 
mind. Exhaustion such as she had never known, weighed 
like lead upon her shoulders and dragged at her heels. 
She must sleep. She could not walk the streets all 
night. She entered the door-way under the sign, and 
found her way up a filthy flight of stairs. At the top, 


582 The Octopus 

a man in a blue checked jumper was filling a lamp be- 
hind a high desk. To him Minna applied. 

I should like/’ she faltered, “ to have a room — a bed 
for the night. One of those for fifteen cents will be good 
enough, I think.” 

Well, this place is only for men,” said the man, look- 
ing up from the lamp. 

Oh,” said Minna, “ oh— I— I didn’t know.” 

She looked at him stupidly, and he, with equal stu- 
pidity, returned the gaze. Thus, for a long moment, they 
held each other’s eyes. 

I — I didn’t know,” repeated Minna. 

“ Yes, it’s for men,” repeated the other. 

She slowly descended the stairs, and once more came 
out upon the streets. 

And upon those streets that, as the hours advanced, 
grew more and more deserted, more and more silent, 
more and more oppressive with the sense of the bitter 
hardness of life towards those who have no means of 
living, Minna Hooven spent the first night of her strug- 
gle to keep her head above the ebb-tide of the city’s sea, 
into which she had been plunged. 

Morning came, and with it renewed hunger. At this 
time, she had found her way uptown again, and towards 
ten o’clock was sitting upon a bench in a little park full 
of nurse-maids and children. A group of the maids 
drew their baby-buggies to Minna’s bench, and sat 
down, continuing a conversation they had already be- 
gun. Minna listened. A friend of one of the maids had 
suddenly thrown up her position, leaving her “ madame ” 
in what would appear to have been deserved embarrass- 
ment. 

Oh,” said Minna, breaking in, and lying with sudden 
unwonted fluency, ‘‘ I am a nurse-girl. I am out of a 
place. Do you think I could get that one ? ” 


5^3 


A Story of California 

The group turned and fixed her — so evidently a coun- 
try girl — with a supercilious indifference. 

Well, you might try,'' said one of them. '' Got good 
references ? " 

“ References ? ” repeated Minna blankly. She did not 
know what this meant. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Field ain't the kind to stick about refer- 
ences," spoke up the other, “ she's that soft. Why, any- 
body could work her." 

“ I'll go there," said Minna. Have you the ad- 
dress ? " It was told to her. 

'‘Lorin," she murmured. ‘'Is that out of town?" 

“Well, it's across the Bay." 

“Across the Bay." 

“ Um. You're from the country, ain't you ? " 

“Yes. How — how do I get there? Is it far?" 

“ Well, you take the ferry at the foot of Market Street, 
and then the train on the other side. No, it ain’t very 
far. Just ask any one down there. They'll tell you." 

It was a chance ; but Minna, after walking down to the 
ferry slips, found that the round trip would cost her 
twenty cents. If the journey proved fruitless, only a 
dime would stand between her and the end of every^ 
thing. But it was a chance; the only one that had, as 
yet, presented itself. She made the trip. 

And upon the street-railway cars, upon the ferryboats, 
on the locomotives and way-coaches of the local trains, 
she was reminded of her father's death, and of the giant 
power that had reduced her to her present straits, by the 
letters, P. and S. W. R. R. To her mind, they occurred 
everywhere. She seemed to see them in every direction. 
She fancied herself surrounded upon every hand by the 
long arms of the monster. 

Minute after minute, her hunger gnawed at her. She 
could not keep her mind from it. As she sat on the boat, 


584 


The Octopus 

she found herself curiously scanning the faces of the 
passengers, wondering how long since such a one had 
breakfasted, how long before this other should sit down 
to lunch. 

When Minna descended from the train, at Lorin on the 
other side of the Bay, she found that the place was one 
of those suburban towns, not yet become fashionable, 
such as may be seen beyond the outskirts of any large 
American city. All along the line of the railroad there- 
abouts, houses, small villas — contractors' ventures — 
were scattered, the advantages of suburban lots and sites 
for homes being proclaimed in seven-foot letters upon 
mammoth bill-boards close to the right of way. 

Without much trouble, Minna found the house to which 
she had been directed, a pretty little cottage, set back 
from the street and shaded by palms, live oaks, and the in- 
evitable eucalyptus. Her heart warmed at the sight of it. 
Oh, to find a little niche for herself here, a home, a ref- 
uge from those horrible city streets, from the rat of fam- 
ine, with its relentless tooth. How she would work, how 
strenuously she would endeavour to please, how patient 
of rebuke she would be, how faithful, how conscientious. 
Nor were her pretensions altogether false; upon her, 
while at home, had devolved almost continually the care 
of the baby Hilda, her little sister. She knew the wants 
and needs of children. 

Her heart beating, her breath failing, she rang the bell 
set squarely in the middle of the front door. 

The lady of the house herself, an elderly lady, with 
pleasant, kindly face, opened the door. Minna stated her 
errand. 

“ But I have already engaged a girl," she said. 

Oh," murmured Minna, striving with all her might 
to maintain appearances. Oh — I thought perhaps — " 
She turned away. 


585 


A Story of California 

** Fm sorry,” said the lady. Then she added, '' Would 
you care to look after so many as three little children, 
and help around in light housework between whiles ? ” 

'‘Yes, ma’am.” 

" Because my sister — she lives in North Berkeley, above 
here — she’s looking for a girl. Have you had lots of ex- 
perience? Got good references?” 

“ Yes, ma’am.” 

“ Well, I’ll give you the address. She lives up in North 
Berkeley.” 

She turned back into the house a moment, and re- 
turned, handing Minna a card. 

" That’s where she lives — ^careful not to blot it, child, 
the ink’s wet yet — you had better see her.” 

" Is it far ? Could I walk there ? ” 

" My, no ; you better take the electric cars, about six; 
blocks above here.” 

When Minna arrived in North Berkeley, she had no 
money left. By a cruel mistake, she had taken a car go- 
ing in the wrong direction, and though her error was rec- 
tified easily enough, it had cost her her last five-cent piece. 
She was now to try her last hope. Promptly it crumbled 
away. Like the former, this place had been already filled, 
and Minna left the door of the house with the certainty 
that her chance had come to naught, and that now she en- 
tered into the last struggle with life — the death struggle 
— shorn of her last pitiful defence, her last safeguard, 
her last penny. 

As she once more resumed her interminable walk, she 
realised she was weak, faint; and she knew that it was 
the weakness of complete exhaustion, and the faintness 
of approaching starvation. Was this the end coming 
on? Terror of death aroused her. 

" I must, I must do something, oh, anything. I must 
have something to eat.” 


586 


The Octopus 

At this late hour, the idea of pawning her little jacket 
occurred to her, but now she was far away from the city 
and its pawnshops, and there was no getting back. 

She walked on. An hour passed. She lost her sense 
of direction, became confused, knew not where she was 
going, turned corners and went up by-streets without 
knowing why, anything to keep moving, for she fancied 
that so soon as she stood still, the rat in the pit of her 
stomach gnawed more eagerly. 

At last, she entered what seemed to be, if not a park, 
at least some sort of public enclosure. There were many 
trees ; the place was beautiful ; well-kept roads and walks 
led sinuously and invitingly underneath the shade. 
Through the trees upon the other side of a wide expanse 
of turf, brown and sear under the summer sun, she caught 
a glimpse of tall buildings and a flagstaff. The whole 
place had a vaguely public, educational appearance, and 
Minna guessed, from certain notices affixed to the trees, 
warning the public against the picking of flowers, that 
she had found her way into the grounds of the State Uni- 
versity. She went on a little further. The path she was 
following led her, at length, into a grove of gigantic live 
oaks, whose lower branches all but swept the ground. 
Here the grass was green, the few flowers in bloom, the 
shade very thick. A more lovely spot she had seldom 
seen. Near at hand was a bench, built around the trunk 
of the largest live oak, and here, at length, weak from 
hunger, exhausted to the limits of her endurance, despair- 
ing, abandoned, Minna Hooven sat down to enquire of 
herself what next she could do. 

But once seated, the demands of the animal — so she 
could believe — became more clamorous, more insistent. 
To eat, to rest, to be safely housed against another night, 
above all else, these were the things she craved ; and the 
craving within her grew so mighty that she crisped hef 


A Story of California 587 

poor, starved hands into little fists, in an agfony of desire, 
while the tears ran from her eyes, and the sobs rose thick 
from her breast and struggled and strangled in her aching 
throat. 

But in a few moments Minna was aware that a woman, 
apparently of some thirty years of age, had twice passed 
along the walk in front of the bench where she sat, and 
now, as she took more notice of her, she remembered 
that she had seen her on the ferry-boat coming over 
from the city. 

The woman was gowned in silk, tightly corseted, and 
wore a hat of rather ostentatious smartness. Minna be- 
came convinced that the person was watching her, but 
before she had a chance to act upon this conviction she 
was surprised out of all countenance by the stranger 
coming up to where she sat and speaking to her. 

Here is a coincidence,^’ exclaimed the new-comer, as 
she sat down ; “ surely you are the young girl who sat 
opposite me on the boat. Strange I should come across 
you again. I’ve had you in mind ever since.” 

On this nearer view Minna observed that the woman’s 
face bore rather more than a trace of enamel and that the 
atmosphere about was impregnated with sachet. She was 
not otherwise conspicuous, but there was a certain hard- 
ness about her mouth and a certain droop of fatigue in 
her eyelids which, combined with an indefinite self-con- 
fidence of manner, held Minna’s attention. 

Do you know,” continued the woman, I believe you 
are in trouble. I thought so when I saw you on the boat, 
and I think so now. Are you? Are you in trouble? 
You’re from the country, ain’t you? ” 

Minna, glad to find a sympathiser, even in this 
chance acquaintance, admitted that she was in distress; 
that she had become separated from her mother, and that 
she was indeed from the country. 


588 


X 


The Octopus 

“ IVe been trying* to find a situation,” she hazarded in 
conclusion, but I don’t seem to succeed. I’ve never been 
in a city before, except Bonneville.” 

** Well, it is a coincidence,” said the other. ** I know I 
wasn’t drawn to you for nothing. I am looking for just 
such a young girl as you. You see, I live alone a good 
deal and I’ve been wanting to find a nice, bright, socia- 
ble girl who will be a sort of companion to me. Under- 
stand? And there’s something about you that I like. I 
took to you the moment I saw you on the boat. Now 
shall we talk this over ? ” 

Towards the end of the week, one afternoon, as Presley 
was returning from his club, he came suddenly face to 
face with Minna upon a street corner. 

“Ah,” he cried, coming toward her joyfully. “Upon 
my word, I had almost given you up. I’ve been looking 
everywhere for you. I was afraid you might not be get- 
ting along, and I wanted to see if there was anything I 
could do. How are your mother and Hilda? Where 
are you stopping ? Have you got a good place ? ” 

“ I don’t know where mamma is,” answered Minna. 
“We got separated, and I never have been able to find 
her again.” 

Meanwhile, Presley had been taking in with a quick eye 
the details of Minna’s silk dress, with its garniture of lace, 
its edging of velvet, its silver belt-buckle. Her hair was 
arranged in a new way and on her head was a wide hat 
with a flare to one side, set off with a gilt buckle and a 
puff of bright blue plush. He glanced at her sharply. 

“Well, but — ^but how are you getting on?” he de- 
manded. 

Minna laughed scornfully. 

“ I ? ” she cried. “ Oh, Vve gone to hell. It was 
cither that or starvation.” 

Presley regained his room at the club, white and trem- 


A Story of California 589 

bling. Worse than the worst he had feared had hap- 
pened. He had not been soon enough to help. He had 
failed again. A superstitious fear assailed him that he 
was, in a manner, marked; that he was foredoomed to 
fail. Minna had come — had been driven to this ; and he, 
acting too late upon his tardy resolve, had not been able 
to prevent it. Were the horrors, then, never to end? 
Was the grisly spectre of consequence to forever dance 
in his vision? Were the results, the far-reaching re- 
sults of that battle at the irrigating ditch to cross his path 
forever? When would the affair be terminated, the inci- 
dent closed? Where was that spot to which the tentacle 
of the monster could not reach? 

By now, he was sick with the dread of it all. He want- 
ed to get away, to be free from that endless misery, so 
that he might not see what he could no longer help. 
Cowardly he now knew himself to be. He thought of 
himself only with loathing. 

Bitterly self-contemptuous that he could bring himself 
to a participation in such trivialities, he began to dress to 
keep his engagement to dine with the Cedarquists. 

He arrived at the house nearly half an hour late, but 
before he could take off his overcoat, Mrs. Cedarquist 
appeared in the doorway of the drawing-room at the end 
of the hall. She was dressed as if to go out. 

** My dear Presley,’’ she exclaimed, her stout, over- 
dressed body bustling toward him with a great rustle of 
silk. “ I never was so glad. You poor, dear poet, you 
are thin as a ghost. You need a better dinner than I can 
give you, and that is just what you are to have.” 

‘‘Have I blundered?” Presley hastened to exclaim. 
“Did not Mr. Cedarquist mention Friday evening?” 

“ No, no, no,” she cried ; “ it was he who blundered'. 
You blundering in a social amenity ! Preposterous ! No ; 
Mr. Cedarquist forgot that we were dining out ourselves 


590 


The Octopus 


to-night, and when he told me he had asked you here for 
the same evening, I fell upon the man, my dear, I did 
actually, tooth and nail. But I wouldn’t hear of his wir- 
ing you. I just dropped a note to our hostess, asking if 
I could not bring you, and when I told her who you werey 
she received the idea with, oh, empressement. So, there 
it is, all settled. Cedarquist and the girls are gone on 
ahead, and you are to take the old lady like a dear, dear 
poet. I believe I hear the carriage. Allans I En voi- 
ture! ” 

Once settled in the cool gloom of the coupe, odorous 
of leather and upholstery, Mrs. Cedarquist exclaimed: 

‘‘ And I’ve never told you who you were to dine with ; 
oh, a personage, really. Fancy, you will be in the camp 
of your dearest foes. You are to dine with the Gerard 
people, one of the Vice-Presidents of your hHe noir, the 
P. and S. W. Railroad.” 

Presley started, his fists clenching so abruptly as to all 
but split his white gloves. He was not conscious of what 
he said in reply, and Mrs. Cedarquist was so taken up 
with her own endless stream of talk that she did not ob- 
serve his confusion. 

Their daughter Honora is going to Europe next 
week; her mother is to take her, and Mrs. Gerard is to 
have just a few people to dinner — very informal, you 
know — ourselves, you and, oh, I don’t know, two or three 
others. Have you ever seen Honora? The prettiest lit- 
tle thing, and will she be rich? Millions, I would not 
dare say how many. Tiens, Nous void” 

The coupe drew up to the curb, and Presley followed 
Mrs. Cedarquist up the steps to the massive doors of the 
great house. In a confused daze, he allowed one of the 
footmen to relieve him of his hat and coat ; in a daze he 
rejoined Mrs. Cedarquist in a room with a glass roof, 
hung with pictures, the art gallery, no doubt, and in a 


591 


A Story of California 

daze heard their names announced at the entrance of an- 
other room, the doors of which were hung with thick, 
blue curtains. 

He entered, collecting his wits for the introductions 
and presentations that he foresaw impended. 

The room was very large, and of excessive loftiness. 
Flat, rectagonal pillars of a rose-tinted, variegated marble, 
rose from the floor almost flush with the walls, finishing 
off at the top with gilded capitals of a Corinthian design, 
which supported the ceiling. The ceiling itself, instead 
of joining the walls at right angles, curved to meet them, 
a device that produced a sort of dome-like effect. This 
ceiling was a maze of golden involutions in very high re- 
Mef, that adjusted themselves to form a massive framing 
for a great picture, nymphs and goddesses, white doves, 
golden chariots and the like, all wreathed about with 
clouds and garlands of roses. Between the pillars around 
the sides of the room were hangings of silk, the design — 
of a Louis Quinze type — of beautiful simplicity and fault- 
less taste. The fireplace was a marvel. It reached from 
floor to ceiling; the lower parts, black marble, carved in- 
to crouching Atlases, with great muscles that upbore 
the superstructure. The design of this latter, of a kind 
of purple marble, shot through with white veinings, was 
in the same style as the design of the silk hangings. In 
its midst was a bronze escutcheon, bearing an undeci- 
pherable monogram and a Latin motto. Andirons of 
brass, nearly six feet high, flanked the hearthstone. 

The windows of the room were heavily draped in som- 
bre brocade and ecru lace, in which the initials of the 
family were very beautifully worked. But directly oppo- 
site the fireplace, an extra window, lighted from the ad- 
joining conservatory, threw a wonderful, rich light into 
the apartment. It was a Gothic window of stained glass, 
very large, the centre figures being armed warriors, Par- 


592 


The Octopus 

sifal and Lohengrin ; the one with a banner, the other with 
a swan. The effect was exquisite, the window a verita- 
ble masterpiece, glowing, flaming, and burning with a 
hundred tints and colours — opalescent, purple, wine- 
red, clouded pinks, royal blues, saffrons, violets so dark 
as to be almost black. 

Under foot, the carpet had all the softness of texture of 
grass; skins (one of them of an enormous polar bear) 
and rugs of silk velvet were spread upon the floor. A 
Renaissance cabinet of ebony, many feet taller than Pres- 
ley’s head, and inlaid with ivory and silver, occupied one 
corner of the room, while in its centre stood a vast table 
of Flemish oak, black, heavy as iron, massive. A faint 
odour of sandalwood pervaded the air. From the con- 
servatory near-by, came the splashing of a fountain. A 
row of electric bulbs let into the frieze of the walls be- 
tween the golden capitals, and burning dimly behind hem- 
ispheres of clouded glass, threw a subdued light over the 
whole scene. 

Mrs. Gerard came forward. 

'' This is Mr. Presley, of course, our new poet of whom 
we are all so proud. I was so afraid you would be una- 
ble to come. You have given me a real pleasure in allow- 
ing me to welcome you here.” 

The footman appeared at her elbow. 

Dinner is served, madame,” he announced. 


When Mrs. Hooven had left the boarding-house on 
Castro Street, she had taken up a position on a neigh- 
bouring corner, to wait for Minna’s reappearance. Lit- 
tle Hilda, at this time hardly more than six years of age, 
was with her, holding to her hand. 

Mrs. Hooven was by no means an old woman, but 
hard work had aged her. She no longer had any claim 
to good looks. She no longer took much interest in her 


593 


A Story of California 

personal appearance. At the time of her eviction from 
the Castro Street boarding-house, she wore a faded black 
bcnnet, garnished with faded artificial flowers of dirty 
pink. A plaid shawl was about her shoulders. But this day 
of misfortune had set Mrs. Hooven adrift in even worse 
condition than her daughter. Her purse, containing a 
miserable handful of dimes and nickels, was in her trunk, 
and her trunk was in the hands of the landlady. Minna 
had been allowed such reprieve as her thirty-five cents 
would purchase. The destitution of Mrs. Hooven and 
her little girl had begun from the very moment of her 
eviction. 

While she waited for Minna, watching every street car 
and every approaching pedestrian, a policeman appeared, 
asked what she did, and, receiving no satisfactory reply, 
promptly moved her on. 

Minna had had little assurance in facing the life strug- 
gle of the city. Mrs. Hooven had absolutely none. In 
her, grief, distress, the pinch of poverty, and, above all, the 
nameless fear of the turbulent, fierce life of the streets, 
had produced a numbness, an embruted, sodden, silent, 
speechless condition of dazed mind, and clogged, unin- 
telligent speech. She was dumb, bewildered, stupid, ani- 
mated but by a single impulse. She clung to life, and 
to the life of her little daughter Hilda, with the blind 
tenacity of purpose of a drowning cat. 

Thus, when ordered to move on by the officer, she had 
silently obeyed, not even attempting to explain her situa- 
tion. She walked away to the next street-crossing. 
Then, in a few moments returned, taking up her place 
on the corner near the boarding-house, spying upon the 
approaching cable cars, peeping anxiously down the 
length of the sidewalks. 

Once more, the officer ordered her away, and once 
more, unprotesting, she complied. But when for the 

38 


594 


The Octopus 

third time the policeman found her on the forbidden spot, 
he had lost his temper. This time when Mrs. Hooven 
departed, he had followed her, and when, bewildered, 
persistent, she had attempted to turn back, he caught 
her by the shoulder. 

Do you want to get arrested, hey ? ’’ he demanded. 

Do you want me to lock you up ? Say, do you, speak 
up?’^ 

The ominous words at length reached Mrs. Hooven’s 
comprehension. Arrested ! She was to be arrested. The 
countrywoman’s fear of the Jail nipped and bit eagerly 
at her unwilling heels. She hurried off, thinking to re- 
turn to her post after the policeman should have gone 
away. But when, at length, turning back, she tried to 
find the boarding-house, she suddenly discovered that she 
was on an unfamiliar street. Unwittingly, no doubt, she 
had turned a corner. She could not retrace her steps. 
She and Hilda were lost. 

“ Mammy, I’m tired,” Hilda complained. 

Her mother picked her up. 

“ Mammy, where’re we gowun, mammy ? ” 

Where, indeed? Stupefied, Mrs. Hooven looked about 
her at the endless blocks of buildings, the endless proces- 
sion of vehicles in the streets, the endless march of pe- 
destrians on the sidewalks. Where was Minna ; where 
was she and her baby to sleep that night? How was 
Hilda to be fed ? 

She could not stand still. There was no place to sit 
down ; but one thing was left, walk. 

Ah, that via dolorosa of the destitute, that chemin de 
la croix of the homeless. Ah, the mile after mile of 
granite pavement that must be, must be traversed. Walk 
they must. Move, they must ; onward, forward, whither 
they cannot tell; why, they do not know. Walk, walk, 
walk with bleeding feet and smarting joints; walk with 


595 


A Story of California 

aching back and trembling knees; walk, though the 
senses grow giddy with fatigue, though the eyes droop 
with sleep, though every nerve, demanding rest, sets in 
motion its tiny alarm of pain. Death is at the end of 
that devious, winding maze of paths, crossed and re- 
crossed and crossed again. There is but one goal to the 
via dolorosa; there is no escape from the central chamber 
of that labyrinth. Fate guides the feet of them that are 
set therein. Double on their steps though they may, 
weave in and out of the myriad corners of the city’s 
streets, return, go forward, back, from side to side, here, 
there, anywhere, dodge, twist, wind, the central chamber 
where Death sits is reached inexorably at the end. 

Sometimes leading and sometimes carrying Hilda, 
Mrs. Hooven set off upon her objectless journey. Block 
after block she walked, street after street. She was 
afraid to stop, because of the policemen. As often as 
she so much as slackened her pace, she was sure to see 
one of these terrible figures in the distance, watching her, 
so it seemed to her, waiting for her to halt for the frac- 
tion of a second, in order that he might have an excuse 
to arrest her. 

Hilda fretted incessantly. 

Mammy, where’re we gowun ? Mammy, Fm tired.” 
Then, at last, for the first time, that plaint that stabbed 
the mother’s heart: 

Mammy, I’m hungry.” 

''Be qui-ut, den,” said Mrs. Hooven. "Bretty soon 
we’ll hev der subber.” 

Passers-by on the sidewalk, men and women in the 
great six o’clock homeward march, jostled them as they 
went along. With dumb, dull curiousness, she looked 
into one after another of the limitless stream of faces, 
and she fancied she saw in them every emotion but pity. 
The faces were gay, were anxious, were sorrowful, were 


596 The Octopus 

mirthful, were lined with thought, or were merely flat 
and expressionless, but not one was turned toward her 
in compassion. The expressions of the faces might be 
various, but an underlying callousness was discoverable 
beneath every mask. The people seemed removed from 
her immeasurably ; they were infinitely above her. What 
was she to them, she and her baby, the crippled outcasts 
of the human herd, the unfit, not able to survive, thrust 
out on the heath to perish? 

To beg from these people did not yet occur to her. 
There was no pride, however, in the matter. She would 
have as readily asked alms of so many sphinxes. 

She went on. Without willing it, her feet carried her 
in a wide circle. Soon she began to recognise the houses ; 
she had been in that street before. Somehow, this was 
distasteful to her; so, striking off at right angles, she 
walked straight before her for over a dozen blocks. By 
now, it was growing darker. The sun had set. The 
hands of a clock on the power-house of a cable line 
pointed to seven. No doubt, Minna had come long before 
this time, had found her mother gone, and had — just 
what had she done, just what could she do? Where was 
her daughter now? Walking the streets herself, no 
doubt. What was to become of Minna, pretty girl that 
she was, lost, houseless and friendless in the maze of 
these streets? Mrs. Hooven, roused from her lethargy, 
could not repress an exclamation of anguish. Here was 
misfortune indeed ; here was calamity. She bestirred her- 
self, and remembered the address of the boarding-house. 
She might inquire her way back thither. No doubt, by 
now the policeman would be gone home for the night. 
She looked about. She was in the district of modest 
residences, and a young man was coming toward her, 
carrying a new garden hose looped around his shoulder. 
Say, Meest’r ; say, blease ” 


597 


A Story of California 

The young man gave her a quick look and passed on, 
hitching the coil of hose over his shoulder. But a few 
paces distant, he slackened in his walk and fumbled in 
his vest pocket with his fingers. Then he came back to 
Mrs. Hooven and put a quarter into her hand. 

Mrs. Hooven stared at the coin stupefied. The young 
man disappeared. He thought, then, that she was beg- 
ging. It had come to that ; she, independent all her life, 
whose husband had held five hundred acres of wheat 
land, had been taken for a beggar. A flush of shame 
shot to her face. She was about to throw the money 
after its giver. But at the moment, Hilda again ex- 
claimed : 

Mammy, Tm hungry.” 

With a movement of infinite lassitude and resigned 
acceptance of the situation, Mrs. Hooven put the coin in 
her pocket. She had no right to be proud any longer. 
Hilda must have food. 

That evening, she and her child had supper at a cheap 
restaurant in a poor quarter of the town, and passed the 
night on the benches of a little uptown park. 

Unused to the ways of the town, ignorant as to the 
customs and possibilities of eating-houses, she spent the 
whole of her quarter upon supper for herself and Hilda, 
and had nothing left wherewith to buy a lodging. 

The night was dreadful ; Hilda sobbed herself to sleep 
on her mother's shoulder, waking thereafter from hour to 
hour, to protest, though wrapped in her mother's shawl, 
that she was cold, and to enquire why they did not go 
to bed. Drunken men snored and sprawled near at 
hand. Towards morning, a loafer, reeking of alcohol, 
sat down beside her, and indulged in an incoherent 
soliloquy, punctuated with oaths and obscenities. It was 
not till far along towards daylight that she fell asleep. 
She awoke to find it broad day. Hilda— mercifully— 


598 The Octopus 

slept. Her mother’s limbs were stiff and lame with cold 
and damp; her head throbbed. She moved to another 
bench which stood in the rays of the sun, and for a long 
two hours sat there in the thin warmth, till the moisture 
of the night that clung to her clothes was evaporated. 

A policeman came into view. She woke Hilda, and 
carrying her in her arms, took herself away. 

Mammy,’^ began Hilda as soon as she was well 
awake ; ‘‘ Mammy, I’m hungry. I want mein breakfest.” 

Sure, sure, soon now, leedle tochter.’' 

She herself was hungry, but she had but little thought 
of that. How was Hilda to be fed? She remembered 
her experience of the previous day, when the young 
man with the hose had given her money. Was it so 
easy, then, to beg ? Could charity be had for the asking ? 
So it seemed; but all that was left of her sturdy inde- 
pendence revolted at the thought. She beg! She hold 
out the hand to strangers ! 

Mammy, I’m hungry.” 

There was no other way. It must come to that in the 
end. Why temporise, why put off the inevitable? She 
sought out a frequented street where men and women 
were on their way to work. One after another, she let 
them go by, searching their faces, deterred at the very 
last moment by some trifling variation of expression, a 
firm set mouth, a serious, level eyebrow, an advancing 
chin. Then, twice, when she had made a choice, and 
brought her resolution to the point of speech, she 
quailed, shrinking, her ears tingling, her whole being 
protesting against the degradation. Every one must be 
looking at her. Her shame was no doubt the object of 
an hundred eyes. 

Mammy, I’m hungry,” protested Hilda again. 

She made up her mind. What, though, was she to 
say? In what words did beggars ask for assistance? 


599 


A Story of California 

She tried to remember how tramps who had appeared 
at her back door on Los Muertos had addressed her ; how 
and with what formula certain mendicants of Bonneville 
had appealed to her. Then, having settled upon a 
phrase, she approached a whiskered gentleman with a 
large stomach, walking briskly in the direction of the town. 

“ Say, den, blease hellup a boor womun.” 

The gentleman passed on. 

“ Perhaps he doand hear me,’’ she murmured. 

Two well-dressed women advanced, chattering gayly. 

“ Say, say, den, blease hellup a boor womun.” 

One of the women paused, murmuring to her compan- 
ion, and from her purse extracted a yellow ticket which she 
gave to Mrs. Hooven with voluble explanations. But 
Mrs.Hooven was confused, she did not understand. What 
could the ticket mean ? The women went on their way. 

The next person to whom she applied was a young 
girl of about eighteen, very prettily dressed. 

‘‘ Say, say, den, blease hellup a boor womun.” 

In evident embarrassment, the young girl paused and 
searched in her little pocketbook. 

“ I think I have — I think — I have just ten cents here 
somewhere,” she murmured again and again. 

In the end, she found a dime, and dropped it into Mrs. 
Hooven’s palm. 

That was the beginning. The first step once taken, the 
others became easy. All day long, Mrs. Hooven and 
Hilda followed the streets, begging, begging. Here it 
was a nickel, there a dime, here a nickel again. But she 
was not expert in the art, nor did she know where to buy 
food the cheapest ; and the entire day’s work resulted only 
in barely enough for two meals of bread, milk, and a 
wretchedly cooked stew. Tuesday night found the pair 
once more shelterless. 

Once more, Mrs. Hooven and her baby passed the 


6oo The Octopus 

night on the park benches. But early on Wednesday 
morning, Mrs. Hooven found herself assailed by sharp 
pains and cramps in her stomach. What was the cause 
she could not say ; but as the day went on, the pains in- 
creased, alternating with hot flushes over all her body, 
and a certain weakness and faintness. As the day went 
-on, the pain and the weakness increased. When she tried 
Ao walk, she found she could do so only with the greatest 
difficulty. Here was fresh misfortune. To beg, she 
must walk. Dragging herself forward a half-block at a 
time, she regained the street once more. She succeeded 
in begging a couple of nickels, bought a bag of apples 
from a vender, and, returning to the park, sank ex- 
hausted upon a bench. 

Here she remained all day until evening, Hilda alter- 
nately whimpering for her bread and milk, or playing lan- 
guidly in the gravel walk at her feet. In the evening, 
she started out again. This time, it was bitter hard. 
Nobody seemed inclined to give. Twice she was “ moved 
on by policemen. Two hours’ begging elicited but a 
single dime. With this, she bought Hilda’s bread and 
milk, and refusing herself to eat, returned to the bench — 
the only home she knew — and spent the night shivering 
with cold, burning with fever. 

From Wednesday morning till Friday evening, with 
the exception of the few apples she had bought, and a 
quarter of a loaf of hard bread that she found in a 
greasy newspaper — scraps of a workman’s dinner — Mrs. 
Hooven had nothing to eat. In her weakened condition, 
begging became hourly more difficult, and such little 
money as was given her, she resolutely spent on Hilda's 
bread and milk in the morning and evening. 

By Friday afternoon, she was very weak, indeed. Her 
eyes troubled her. She could no longer see distinctly, 
and at times there appeared to her curious figures, huge 


A Story of California 6oi 

crystal goblets of the most graceful shapes, floating and 
swaying in the air in front of her, almost within arm’s 
reach. Vases of elegant forms, made of shimmering 
glass, bowed and courtesied toward her. Glass bulbs 
took graceful and varying shapes before her vision, now 
rounding into globes, now evolving into hour-glasses, 
now twisting into pretzel-shaped convolutions. 

“ Mammy, I’m hungry,” insisted Hilda, passing her 
hands over her face. Mrs. Hooven started and woke. 
It was Friday evening. Already the street lamps were 
being lit. 

“ Gome, den, leedle girl,” she said, rising and taking 
Hilda’s hand. Gome, den, we go vind subber, hey ? ” 

She issued from the park and took a cross street, di- 
rectly away from the locality where she had begged the 
previous days. She had had no success there of late. 
She would try some other quarter of the town. After a 
weary walk, she came out upon Van Ness Avenue, near 
its junction with Market Street. She turned into the 
avenue, and went on toward the Bay, painfully travers- 
ing block after block, begging of all whom she met (for 
she no longer made any distinction among the passers-by) . 

“ Say, say, den, blease hellup a boor womun.” 

Mammy, mammy. I’m hungry.” 

It was Friday night, between seven and eight. The 
great deserted avenue was already dark. A sea fog was 
scudding overhead, and by degrees descending lower. 
The warmth was of the meagerest, and the street lamps, 
birds of fire in cages of glass, fluttered and danced in the 
prolonged gusts of the trade wind that threshed and 
weltered in the city streets from off the ocean. 


Presley entered the dining-room of the Gerard man- 
sion with little Miss Gerard on his arm. The other 
guests had preceded them — Cedarquist with Mrs. 


6o2 The Octopus 

Gerard; a pale-faced, languid young man (introduced to 
Presley as Julian Lambert) with Presley’s cousin Bea- 
trice, one of the twin daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Cedar- 
quist ; his brother Stephen, whose hair was straight as an 
Indian’s, but of a pallid straw color, with Beatrice’s 
sister; Gerard himself, taciturn, bearded, rotund, loud of 
breath, escorted Mrs. Cedarquist. Besides these, there 
were one or two other couples, whose names Presley did 
not remember. 

The dining-room was superb in its appointments. On 
three sides of the room, to the height of some ten feet, 
ran a continuous picture, an oil painting, divided into 
long sections by narrow panels of black oak. The paint- 
ing represented the personages in the Romaunt de la 
Rose, and was conceived in an atmosphere of the most 
delicate, most ephemeral allegory. One saw young che- 
valiers, blue-eyed, of elemental beauty and purity ; women 
with crowns, gold girdles, and cloudy wimples; young 
girls, entrancing in their loveliness, wearing snow-white 
kerchiefs, their golden hair unbound and flowing, dressed 
in white samite, bearing armfuls of flowers; the whole 
procession defiling against a background of forest glades, 
venerable oaks, half-hidden fountains, and fields of aspho- 
del and roses. 

Otherwise, the room was simple. Against the side 
of the wall unoccupied by the picture stood a sideboard of 
gigantic size, that once had adorned the banquet hall of 
an Italian palace of the late Renaissance. It was black 
with age, and against ks sombre surfaces glittered an 
array of heavy silver dishes and heavier cut-glass bowls 
and goblets. 

The company sat down to the first course of raw Blue 
Point oysters, served upon little pyramids of shaved ice, 
%nd the two butlers at once began filling the glasses of 
^e guests with cool Haut Sauterne. 


A Story of California 603 

Mrs. Gerard, who was very proud of her dinners, and 
never able to resist the temptation of commenting upon 
them to her guests, leaned across to Presley and Mrs. 
Cedarquist, murmuring, “ Mr. Presley, do you find that 
Sauterne too cold ? I always believe it is so bourgeois to 
keep such a delicate wine as Sauterne on the ice, and to 
ice Bordeaux or Burgundy — oh, it is nothing short of a 
crime.” 

''This is from your own vineyard, is it not?” asked 
Julian Lambert. " I think I recognise the bouquet.” 

He strove to maintain an attitude of Hn gourmet, un- 
able to refrain from comment upon the courses as they 
succeeded one another. 

Little Honora Gerard turned to Presley : 

" You know,” she explained, " Papa has his own vine- 
yards in southern France. He is so particular about his 
wines; turns up his nose at California wines. And I 
am to go there next summer. Ferrieres is the name of 
the place where our vineyards are, the dearest village ! ” 

She was a beautiful little girl of a dainty porcelain 
type, her colouring low in tone. She wore no jewels, but 
her little, undeveloped neck and shoulders, of an exquisite 
immaturity, rose from the tulle bodice of her first 
decollete gown. 

" Yes,” she continued ; " Pm to go to Europe for the 
first time. Won't it be gay? And I am to have my 
own bonne, and Mamma and I are to travel — so many 
places, Baden, Homburg, Spa, the Tyrol. Won’t it be 
gay?” 

Presley assented in meaningless words. He sipped his 
wine mechanically, looking about that marvellous room, 
with its subdued saffron lights, its glitter of glass and 
silver, its beautiful women in their elaborate toilets, its 
deft, correct servants; its array of tableware — cut glass, 
chased silver, and Dresden crockery. It was Wealth, in 


6o4 


The Octopus 


all its outward and visible forms, the signs of an opu- 
lence so great that it need never be husbanded. It was 
the home of a railway Magnate,” a Railroad King. 
For this, then, the farmers paid. It was for this that S. 
Behrman turned the screw, tightened the vise. It was for 
this that Dyke had been driven to outlawry and a jail. 
It was for this that Lyman Derrick had been bought, 
the Governor ruined and broken, Annixter shot down, 
Hooven killed. 

The soup, puree a la Derby, was served, and at the 
same time, as hors d’oeuvres, ortolan patties, together 
with a tiny sandwich made of browned toast and thin 
slices of ham, sprinkled over with Parmesan cheese. The 
wine, so Mrs. Gerard caused it to be understood, was 
Xeres, of the 1815 vintage. 


Mrs. Hooven crossed the avenue. It was growing 
late. Without knowing it, she had come to a part of the 
city that experienced beggars shunned. There was no- 
body about. Block after block of residences stretched 
away on either hand, lighted, full of people. But the 
sidewalks were deserted. 

Mammy,” whimpered Hilda. ** Pm tired, carry me.” 

Using all her strength, Mrs. Hooven picked her up 
and moved on aimlessly. 

Then again that terrible cry, the cry of the hungry 
child appealing to the helpless mother: 

“ Mammy, Pm hungry.” 

** Ach, Gott, leedle girl,” exclaimed Mrs. Hooven, hold- 
ing her close to her shoulder, the tears starting from her 
eyes. Ach, leedle tochter. Doand, doand, doand. You 
praik my hairt. I cen’t vind any subber. We got nod- 
dings to eat, noddings, noddings.” 

“ When do we have those bread^n milk again, 
Mammy?’* 


A Story of California 605 

To-morrow — soon — py-and-py, Hilda. I doand 
know what pecome oaf us now, what pecome oaf my 
leedle babby.” 

She went on, holding Hilda against her shoulder with 
one arm as best she might, one hand steadying herself 
against the fence railings along the sidewalk. At last, a 
solitary pedestrian came into view, a young man in a top 
hat and overcoat, walking rapidly. Mrs. Hooven held 
out a quivering hand as he passed her. 

“ Say, say, den, Meest’r, blease hellup a boor womun/’ 

The other hurried on. 


The fish course was grenadins of bass and small sah 
mon, the latter stuffed, and cooked in white wine and 
mushroom liquor. 

I have read your poem, of course, Mr. Presley,^^ ob- 
served Mrs. Gerard. “ ' The Toilers,^ I mean. What a 
sermon you read us, you dreadful young man. I felt 
that I ought at once to ' sell all that I have and give to the 
poor.’ Positively, it did stir me up. You may con- 
gratulate yourself upon making at least one convert. 
Just because of that poem Mrs. Cedarquist and I have 
started a movement to send a whole shipload of wheat 
to the starving people in India. Now, you horrid 
reactionnatre, are you satisfied ? ” 

‘‘ I am very glad,” murmured Presley. 

“ But I am afraid,” observed Mrs. Cedarquist, “ that 
we may be too late. They are dying so fast, those poor 
people. By the time our ship reaches India the famine 
may be all over.” 

One need never be afraid of being ^ too late ’ in the 
matter of helping the destitute,” answered Presley. 

Unfortunately, they are always a fixed quantity. ‘ The 
poor ye have always with you.’ ”. 

‘‘ How very clever that is,” said Mrs. Gerard. 


6o6 The Octopus 

Mrs. Cedarquist tapped the table with her fan in mild 
applause. 

'' Brilliant, brilliant,’' she murmured, “ epigram- 
matical.” 

'' Honora,” said Mrs. Gerard, turning to her daughter, 
at that moment in conversation with the languid Lam- 
bert, “ Honora, entends-tu, ma cherie, V esprit de notre 
jeune Lamartine/' 

Mrs. Hooven went on, stumbling from street to street, 
holding Hilda to her breast. Famine gnawed incessantly 
at her stomach; walk though she might, turn upon her 
tracks up and down the streets, back to the avenue again, 
incessantly and relentlessly the torture dug into her 
vitals. She was hungry, hungry, and if the want of food 
harassed and rended her, full-grown woman that she was, 
what must it be in the poor, starved stomach of her little 
girl? Oh, for some helping hand now, oh, for one little 
mouthful, one little nibble ! Food, food, all her wrecked 
body clamoured for nourishment ; anything to numb those 
gnawing teeth — an abandoned loaf, hard, mouldered; a 
half-eaten fruit, yes, even the refuse of the gutter, even 
the garbage of the ash heap. On she went, peering into 
dark corners, into the areaways, anywhere, everywhere, 
watching the silent prowling of cats, the intent rovings 
of stray dogs. But she was growing weaker; the pains 
and cramps in her stomach returned. Hilda’s weight 
bore her to the pavement. More than once a great giddi^ 
ness, a certain wheeling faintness all but overcame her. 
Hilda, however, was asleep. To wake her would only 
mean to revive her to the consciousness of hunger; yet 
how to carry her further? Mrs. Hooven began to fear 
that she would fall with her child in her arms. The 
terror of a collapse upon those cold pavements glistening 
with fog-damp roused her; she must make an effort to 


6o7 


A Story of California 

get through the night. She rallied all her strength, and 
pausing a moment to shift the weight of her baby to the 
other arm, once more set off through the night. A little 
while later she found on the edge of the sidewalk the 
peeling of a banana. It had been trodden upon and it 
was muddy, but joyfully she caught it up. 

Hilda,” she cried, wake oop, leedle girl. See, loog 
den, dere’s somedings to eat. Look den, hey? Dat’s 
goot, ain’t it? Zum bunaner.” 

But it could not be eaten. Decayed, dirty, all but rot- 
ting, the stomach turned from the refuse, nauseated. 

“ No, no,” cried Hilda, ‘‘ that’s not good. I can’t eat it. 
Oh, Mammy, please gif me those bread’n milk.” 


By now the guests of Mrs. Gerard had come to the 
entrees — Londonderry pheasants, escallops of duck, and 
rissolettes a la pompadour. The wine was Chateau 
Latour. 

All around the table conversations were going forward 
gayly. The good wines had broken up the slight re- 
straint of the early part of the evening and a spirit of 
good humour and good fellowship prevailed. Young 
Lambert and Mr. Gerard were deep in reminiscences of 
certain mutual duck-shooting expeditions. Mrs. Gerard 
and Mrs. Cedarquist discussed a novel — a strange min- 
gling of psychology, degeneracy, and analysis of erotic 
conditions — which had just been translated from the Ital- 
ian. Stephen Lambert and Beatrice disputed over the 
merits of a Scotch collie just given to the young lady. 
The scene was gay, the electric bulbs sparkled, the wine 
flashing back the light. The entire table was a vague 
glow of white napery, delicate china, and glass as brilliant 
as crystal. Behind the guests the serving-men came and 
went, filling the glasses continually, changing the covers, 
serving the entrees, managing the dinner without in- 


6o8 The Octopus 

terruption, confusion, or the slightest unnecessary; 
noise. 

But Presley could find no enjoyment in the occasion. 
From that picture of feasting, that scene of luxury, that 
atmosphere of decorous, well-bred refinement, his 
thoughts went back to Los Muertos and Quien Sabe and 
the irrigating ditch at Hooven’s. He saw them fall, one 
by one, Harran, Annixter, Osterman, Broderson, Hooven. 
The dink of the wine glasses was drowned in the ex- 
plosion of revolvers. The Railroad might indeed be a 
force only, which no man could control and for which no 
man was responsible, but his friends had been killed, but 
years of extortion and oppression had wrung money 
from all the San Joaquin, money that had made possible 
this very scene in which he found himself. Because 
Magnus had been beggared, Gerard had become Railroad 
King ; because the farmers of the valley were poor, these 
men were rich. 

The fancy grew big in his mind, distorted, caricatured, 
terrible. Because the farmers had been killed at the irri- 
gation ditch, these others, Gerard and his family, fed full. 
They fattened on the blood of the People, on the blood 
of the men who had been killed at the ditch. It was a 
half-ludicrous, half-horrible dog eat dog,” an unspeak- 
able cannibalism. Harran, Annixter, and Hooven were 
being devoured there under his eyes. These dainty 
women, his cousin Beatrice and little Miss Gerard, frail, 
delicate ; all these fine ladies with their small fingers and 
slender necks, suddenly were transfigured in his tortured 
mind into harpies tearing human flesh. His head swam 
with the horror of it, the terror of it. Yes, the People 
would turn some day, and turning, rend those who now 
preyed upon them. It would be ‘'dog eat dog” again, 
with positions reversed, and he saw for one instant of 
time that splendid house sacked to its foundations, the 


A Story of California 609 

tables overturned, the pictures torn, the hangings blaz- 
ing, and Liberty, the red-handed Man in the Street, 
grimed with powder smoke, foul with the gutter, rush 
yelling, torch in hand, through every door. 

At ten o'clock Mrs. Hooven fell. 

Luckily she was leading Hilda by the hand at the time 
and the little girl was not hurt. In vain had Mrs. 
Hooven, hour after hour, walked the streets. After a 
while she no longer made any attempt to beg; nobody 
was stirring, nor did she even try to hunt for food with 
the stray dogs and cats. She had made up her mind to 
return to the park in order to sit upon the benches there, 
but she had mistaken the direction, and following up 
Sacramento Street, had come out at length, not upon the 
park, but upon a great vacant lot at the very top of the 
Clay Street hill. The ground was un fenced and rose 
above her to form the cap of the hill, all overgrown with 
bushes and a few stunted live oaks. It was in trying to 
cross this piece of ground that she fell. She got upon 
her feet again. 

** Ach, Mammy, did you hurt yourself? " asked Hilda. 

No, no." 

Is that house where we get those bread'n milk ? ” 

Hilda pointed to a single rambling building just visi- 
ble in the night, that stood isolated upon the summit of 
the hill in a grove of trees. 

** No, no, dere aindt no braid end miluk, leedle tochter.” 

Hilda once more began to sob. 

Ach, Mammy, please, please, I want it. Fm hungry." 

The jangled nerves snapped at last under the tension, 
and Mrs. Hooven, suddenly shaking Hilda roughly, cried 
out: 

** Stop, stop. Doand say ut egen, you. My Gott, you 
kill me yet" 


6io The Octopus 

But quick upon this came the reaction. The mother 
caught her little girl to her, sinking down upon her 
knees, putting her arms around her, holding her close. 

No, no, gry all so mudge es you want. Say dot you 
are hongry. Say ut egen, say ut all de dime, ofer end 
ofer egen. Say ut, poor, starfing, leedle babby. Oh. 
mein poor, leedle tochter. My Gott, oh, 1 go crazy 
bretty soon, I guess. I cen’t hellup you. 1 cen t gecl 
you noddings to eat, noddings, noddings. Hilda, we 
gowun to die togedder. Put der arms roundt me, soli, 
tighd, leedle babby. We gowun to die, we gowun 
to vind Popper. We aindt gowun to be hongry eny 
more.” 

“Vair we go now?” demanded Hilda. 

"‘No places. Mommer’s soh tiredt. We stop heir, 
leedle while, end rest.” 

Underneath a large bush that afforded a little shelter 
from the wind, Mrs. Hooven lay down, taking Hilda in 
her arms and wrapping her shawl about her. The infi- 
nite, vast night expanded gigantic all around them. At 
this elevation they were far above the city. It was still. 
Close overhead whirled the chariots of the fog, galloping 
landward, smothering lights, blurring outlines. Soon all 
sight of the town was shut out ; even the solitary house on 
the hilltop vanished. There was nothing left but grey, 
wheeling fog, and the mother and child, alone, shivering 
in a little strip of damp ground, an island drifting aim- 
lessly in empty space. 

Hilda’s fingers touched a leaf from the bush and in- 
stinctively closed upon it and carried it to her mouth. 

“ Mammy,” she said, “ Pm eating those leaf. Is thos< 
good ? ” 

Her mother did not reply. 

“You going to sleep. Mammy?” inquired Hilda, 
touching her face. 


A Story of California 6ii 

Mrs. Hooven roused herself a little. 

“Hey? Vat you say? Asleep? Yais, I guess I wass 
asleep.” 

Her voice trailed unintelligibly to silence again. She 
was not, however, asleep. Her eyes were open. A grate- 
ful numbness had begun to creep over her, a pleasing 
semi-insensibility. She no longer felt the pain and 
cramps of her stomach, even the hunger was ceasing to 
bite. 


“ These stuffed artichokes are delicious, Mrs. Gerard,” 
murmured young Lambert, wiping his lips with a corner 
of his napkin. “ Pardon me for mentioning it, but your 
dinner must be my excuse.” 

“ And this asparagus — since Mr. Lambert has set the 
bad example,” observed Mrs. Cedarquist, “so delicate, 
such an exquisite flavour. How do you manage ? ” 

“We get all our asparagus from the southern part of 
the State, from one particular ranch,” explained Mrs. 
Gerard. “We order it by wire and get it only twenty 
hours after cutting. My husband sees to it that it is 
put on a special train. It stops at this ranch just to take 
on our asparagus. Extravagant, isn’t it, but I simply 
cannot eat asparagus that has been cut more than a 
day.” 

“ Nor I,” exclaimed Julian Lambert, who posed as an 
epicure. “ I can tell to an hour just how long asparagus 
has been picked.” 

“ Fancy eating ordinary market asparagus,” said Mrs. 
Gerard, “ that has been fingered by Heaven knows how 
many hands.” 

“Mammy, mammy, wake up,” cried Hilda, trying to 
push open Mrs. Hooven’s eyelids, at last closed. “ Mam- 
my, don’t. You’re just trying to frighten me.” 


6i2 


The Octopus 

Feebly Hilda shook her by the shoulder. At last Mrs. 
Hooven's lips stirred. Putting her he^d down, Hilda 
distinguished the whispered words : 

Pm sick. Go to schleep. . . . Sick. . . . 
Noddings to eat.’' 

The dessert was a wonderful preparation of alternate 
layers of biscuit glaces, ice cream, and candied chestnuts. 

Delicious, is it not? ” observed Julian Lambert, partly 
to himself, partly to Miss Cedarquist. This Moscovite 
fouette — upon my word, I have never tasted its equal.” 

“ And you should know, shouldn’t you ? ” returned the 
young lady. 

Mammy, mammy, wake up,” cried Hilda. ** Don’t 
sleep so. I’m frightenedt.” 

Repeatedly she shook her ; repeatedly she tried to raise 
the inert eyelids with the point of her finger. But her 
mother no longer stirred. The gaunt, lean body, with its 
bony face and sunken eye-sockets, lay back, prone upon 
the ground, the feet upturned and showing the ragged, 
worn soles of the shoes, the forehead and grey hair 
beaded with fog, the poor, faded bonnet awry, the poor, 
faded dress soiled and torn. 

Hilda drew close to her mother, kissing her face, twin- 
ing her arms around her neck. For a long time, she lay 
that way, alternately sobbing and sleeping. Then, after 
a long time, there was a stir. She woke from a doze co 
find a police officer and two or three other men bending 
over her. Some one carried a lantern. Terrified, smitten 
dumb, she was unable to answer the questions put to her. 
Then a woman, evidently a mistress of the house on the 
top of the hill, arrived and took Hilda in her arms and 
cried over her. 

I’ll take the little girl,” she said to the police officer. 


A Story of California 613 

‘^But the mother, can you save her? Is she too far 
gone 

“ Fve sent for a doctor, replied the other. 

Just before the ladies left the table, young Lambert 
raised his glass of Madeira. Turning towards the wife 
of the Railroad King, he said : 

“ My best compliments for a delightful dinner.^’ 


The doctor who had been bending over Mrs. Hooven, 
rose. 

IFs no use,’’ he said ; “ she has been dead some time- 
exhaustion from starvation.” 


IX 


On Division Number Three of the Los Muertos ranch 
the wheat had already been cut, and S. Behrman on a 
certain morning in the first week of August drove across 
the open expanse of stubble toward the southwest, his 
eyes searching the horizon for the feather of smoke that 
would mark the location of the steam harvester. How- 
ever, he saw nothing. The stubble extended onward 
apparently to the very margin of the world. 

At length, S. Behrman halted his buggy and brought 
out his field glasses from beneath the seat. He stood 
up in his place and, adjusting the lenses, swept the pros- 
pect to the south and west. It was the same as though 
the sea of land were, in reality, the ocean, and he, lost in 
an open boat, were scanning the waste through his 
glasses, looking for the smoke of a steamer, hull down, 
below the horizon. Wonder,'" he muttered, if they're 
working on Four this morning? " 

At length, he murmured an ‘‘ Ah " of satisfaction. Far 
to the south into the white sheen of sky, immediately over 
the horizon, he made out a faint smudge — the harvester 
beyond doubt. 

Thither S. Behrman turned his horse's head. It was 
all of an hour's drive over the uneven ground and 
through the crackling stubble, but at length he reached 
the harvester. He found, however, that it had been 
halted. The sack sewers, together with the header-man, 
were stretched on the ground in the shade of the ma- 
chine, while the engineer and separator-man were potter- 
ing about a portion of the works. 


A Story of California 615 

"Whafs the matter, Billy demanded S. Behrman 
reining up. 

The engineer turned about. 

The grain is heavy in here. We thought we’d better 
increase the speed of the cup-carrier, and pulled up to 
put in a smaller sprocket.” 

S. Behrman nodded to say that was all right, and 
added a question. 

How is she going ? ” 

‘'Anywheres from twenty-five to thirty sacks to the 
acre right along here; nothing the matter with that I 
guess.” 

“ Nothing in the world. Bill.” 

One of the sack sewers interposed : 

“ For the last half hour we’ve been throwing off three 
bags to the minute.” 

“ That’s good, that’s good.” 

It was more than good ; it was “ bonanza,” and all that 
division of the great ranch was thick with just such 
wonderful wheat. Never had Los Muertos been more 
generous, never a season more successful. S. Behrman 
drew a long breath of satisfaction. He knew just how 
great was his share in the lands which had just been 
absorbed by the corporation he served, just how many 
thousands of bushels of this marvellous crop were his 
property. Through all these years of confusion, bicker- 
ings, open hostility and, at last, actual warfare he had 
waited, nursing his patience, calm with the firm assurance 
of ultimate success. The end, at length, had come; he 
had entered into his reward and saw himself at last in- 
stalled in the place he had so long, so silently coveted; 
saw himself chief of a principality, the Master of the 
Wheat. 

The sprocket adjusted, the engineer called up the gang 
and the men took their places. The fireman stoked 


6i6 


The Octopus 


vigorously, the two sack sewers resumed their posts on 
the sacking platform, putting on the goggles that kept 
the chaff from their eyes. The separator-man and 
header-man gripped their levers. 

The harvester, shooting a column of thick smoke 
straight upward, vibrating to the top of the stack, hissed, 
clanked, and lurched forward. Instantly, motion sprang 
to life in all its component parts ; the header knives, cut- 
ting a thirty-six foot swath, gnashed like teeth ; beltings 
slid and moved like smooth flowing streams; the sepa- 
rator whirred, the agitator jarred and crashed; cylinders, 
augers, fans, seeders and elevators, drapers and chaff- 
carriers clattered, rumbled, buzzed, and clanged. The 
steam hissed and rasped; the ground reverberated a 
hollow note, and the thousands upon thousands of wheat 
stalks sliced and slashed in the clashing shears of the 
header, rattled like dry rushes in a hurricane, as they fell 
inward, and were caught up by an endless belt, to dis- 
appear into the bowels of the vast brute that devoured 
them. 

It was that and no less. It was the feeding of some 
prodigious monster, insatiable, with iron teeth, gnashing 
and threshing into the fields of standing wheat ; devour- 
ing always, never glutted, never satiated, swallowing an 
entire harvest, snarling and slobbering in a welter of 
warm vapour, acrid smoke, and blinding, pungent clouds 
of chaff. It moved belly-deep in the standing grain, a 
hippopotamus, half-mired in river ooze, gorging rushes, 
snorting, sweating; a dinosaur wallowing through 
thick, hot grasses, floundering there, crouching, grovel- 
ling there as its vast jaws crushed and tore, and its 
enormous gullet swallowed, incessant, ravenous, and 
inordinate. 

S. Behrman, very much amused, changed places with 
one of the sack sewers, allowing him to hold his horse 


6i7 


A Story of California 

while he mounted the sacking platform and took his 
place. The trepidation and jostling of the machine shook 
him till his teeth chattered in his head. His ears were 
shocked and assaulted by a myriad-tongued clamour, 
clashing steel, straining belts, jarring woodwork, while 
the impalpable chaff powder from the separators settled 
like dust in his hair, his ears, eyes, and mouth. 

Directly in front of where he sat on the platform was 
the chute from the cleaner, and from this into the mouth 
of a half-full sack spouted an unending gush of grain, 
winnowed, cleaned, threshed, ready for the mill. 

The pour from the chute of the cleaner had for S. 
Behrman an immense satisfaction. Without an instant’s 
pause, a thick rivulet of wheat rolled and dashed tumul- 
tuous into the sack. In half a minute — sometimes in 
twenty seconds — the sack was full, was passed over to 
the second sewer, the mouth reeved up, and the sack 
dumped out upon the ground, to be picked up by the 
wagons and hauled to the railroad. 

S. Behrman, hypnotised, sat watching that river of 
grain. All that shrieking, bellowing machinery, all tll^l 
gigantic organism, all the months of labour, the plough- 
ing, the planting, the prayers for rain, the years of prep- 
aration, the heartaches, the anxiety, the foresight, all 
the whole business of the ranch, the work of horses, of 
steam, of men and boys, looked to this spot — the grain 
chute from the harvester into the sacks. Its volume was 
the index of failure or success, of riches or poverty. 
And at this point, the labour of the rancher ended. Here, 
at the lip of the chute, he parted company with his grain, 
and from here the wheat streamed forth to feed the world. 
The yawning mouths of the sacks might well stand for 
the unnumbered mouths of the People, all agape for 
food ; and here, into these sacks, at first so lean, so flaccid, 
attenuated like starved stomachs, rushed the living stream 


6i8 


The Octopus 


of food, insistent, interminable, filling the empty, fatten'* 
ing the shrivelled, making it sleek and heavy and solid. 

Half an hour later, the harvester stopped again. The 
men on the sacking platform had used up all the sacks. 
But S. Behrman’s foreman, a new man on Los Muertos, 
put in an appearance with the report that the wagon 
bringing a fresh supply was approaching. 

“ How is the grain elevator at Port Costa getting on, 
sir?” 

Finished,” replied S. Behrman. 

The new master of Los Muertos had decided upon 
accumulating his grain in bulk in a great elevator at the 
tide-water port, where the grain ships for Liverpool and 
the East took on their cargoes. To this end, he had 
bought and greatly enlarged a building at Port Costa, 
that was already in use for that purpose, and to this 
elevator all the crop of Los Muertos was to be carried. 
The P. and S. W. made S. Behrman a special rate. 

“ By the way,” said S. Behrman to his superintendent, 
“ we’re in luck. Fallon’s buyer was in Bonneville yes- 
terday. He’s buying for Fallon and for Holt, too. I 
happened to run into him, and I’ve sold a ship load.” 

“A ship load!” 

Of Los Muertos wheat. He’s acting for some Indian 
Famine Relief Committee — lot of women people up in 
the city — and wanted a whole cargo. I made a deal with 
him. There’s about fifty thousand tons of disengaged 
shipping in San Francisco Bay right now, and ships are 
fighting for charters. I wired McKissick and got a long 
distance telephone from him this morning. He got me a 
barque, the ' Swanhilda.’ She’ll dock day after to- 
morrow, and begin loading.” 

** Hadn’t I better take a run up,” observed the superin- 
tendent, and keep an eye on things ? ” 

“ No,” answered S. Behrman, I want you to stop 


A Story of California 619 

down here, and see that those carpenters hustle the work 
in the ranch house. Derrick will be out by then. You 
see this deal is peculiar, Tm not selling to any middle- 
man — not to Fallon’s buyer. He only put me on to the 
thing. I’m acting direct with these women people, and 
I’ve got to have some hand in shipping this stuff myself. 
But I made my selling figure cover the price of a charter. 
It’s a queer, mixed-up deal, and I don’t fancy it much, 
but there’s boodle in it. I’ll go to Port Costa myself.” 

A little later on in the day, when S. Behrman had satis- 
fied himself that his harvesting was going forward fa- 
vourably, he reentered his buggy and driving to the 
County Road turned southward towards the Los 
Muertos ranch house. He had not gone far, however, 
before he became aware of a familiar figure on horse- 
back, jogging slowly along ahead of him. He recognised 
Presley; he shook the reins over his horse’s back and 
very soon ranging up by the side of the young man 
passed the time of day with him. 

“ Well, what brings you down here again, Mr. Pres- 
ley?” he observed. -‘I thought we had seen the last of 
you.” 

“ I came down to say good-bye to my friends,” an- 
swered Presley shortly. 

Going away ? ” 

“Yes — to India.” 

“Well, upon my word. For your health, hey?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You look knocked up,” asserted the other. “ By the 
way,” he added, “ I suppose you’ve heard the news ? ” 

Presley shrank a little. Of late the reports of disasters 
had followed so swiftly upon one another that he had 
begun to tremble and to quail at every unexpected bit of 
information. 

“ What news do you mean ? ” he asked. 


620 


The Octopus 

“About Dyke. He has been convicted. The Judge 
sentenced him for life.’^ 

For life ! Riding on by the side of this man through 
the ranches by the County Road, Presley repeated these 
words to himself till the full effect of them burst at last 
upon him. 

Jailed for life! No outlook. No hope for the future. 
Day after day, year after year, to tread the rounds of the 
same gloomy monotony. He saw the grey stone walls, 
the iron doors ; the flagging of the “ yard bare of grass 
or trees — the cell, narrow, bald, cheerless; the prison 
garb, the prison fare, and round all the grim granite of 
insuperable barriers, shutting out the world, shutting in 
the man with outcasts, with the pariah dogs of society, 
thieves, murderers, men below the beasts, lost to all de« 
cency, drugged with opium, utter reprobates. To this, 
Dyke had been brought. Dyke, than whom no man had 
been more honest, more courageous, more jovial. This 
was the end of him, a prison ; this was his final estate, a 
criminal. 

Presley found an excuse for riding on, leaving S. 
Behrman behind him. He did not stop at Caraher’s 
saloon, for the heat of his rage had long since begun to 
cool, and dispassionately, he saw things in their true 
light. For all the tragedy of his wife’s death, Caraher 
was none the less an evil influence among the ranchers, 
an influence that worked only to the inciting of crime. 
Unwilling to venture himself, to risk his own life, the 
anarchist saloon-keeper had goaded Dyke and Presley 
both to murder; a bad man, a plague spot in the world 
of the ranchers, poisoning the farmers’ bodies with alco- 
hol and their minds with discontent. 

At last, Presley arrived at the ranch house of Los 
Muertos. The place was silent; the grass on the lawn 
was half dead and over a foot high; the beginnings of 


621 


A Story of California 

weeds showed here and there in the driveway. He tied 
his horse to a ring in the trunk of one of the larger 
eucalyptus trees and entered the house. 

Mrs. Derrick met him in the dining-room. The old 
look of uneasiness, almost of terror, had gone from her 
wide-open brown eyes. There was in them instead, the 
expression of one to whom a contingency, long dreaded, 
has arrived and passed. The stolidity of a settled grief, 
of an irreparable calamity, of a despair from which there 
was no escape was in her look, her manner, her voice. 
She was listless, apathetic, calm with the calmness of a 
woman who knows she can suffer no further. 

“We are going away,” she told Presley, as the two 
sat down at opposite ends of the dining table. “Just 
Magnus and myself — all there is left of us. There is 
very little money left; Magnus can hardly take care of 
himself, to say nothing of me. I must look after him 
now. We are going to Marysville.” 

“Why there?” 

“You see,” she explained, “it happens that my old 
place is vacant in the Seminary there. I am going back 
to teach — literature.” She smiled wearily. “ It is be- 
ginning all over again, isn’t it ? Only there is nothing to 
look forward to now. Magnus is an old man already, 
and I must take care of him.” 

“ He will go with you, then,” Presley said, “ that will 
be some comfort to you at least.” 

“ I don’t know,” she said slowly, “ you have not seen 
Magnus lately.” 

“ Is he — how do you mean? Isn’t he any better? ” 

“Would you like to see him? He is in the office. 
You can go right in.” 

Presley rose. He hesitated a momoit, then : 

“ Mrs. Annixter,” he asked, “ Hilma— is she still with 
you ? I should like to see her before I go.” 


622 


The Octopus 

** Go in and see Magnus/’ said Mrs. Derrick. ** I will 
tell her you are here.” 

Presley stepped across the stone-paved hallway with 
the glass roof, and after knocking three times at the 
office door pushed it open and entered. 

Magnus sat in the chair before the desk and did not 
look up as Presley entered. He had the appearance of a 
man nearer eighty than sixty. All the old-time erect- 
ness was broken and bent. It was as though the muscles 
that once had held the back rigid, the chin high, had 
softened and stretched. A certain fatness, the obesity 
of inertia, hung heavy around the hips and abdomen, the 
eye was watery and vague, the cheeks and chin unshaven 
and unkempt, the grey hair had lost its forward 
curl towards the temples and hung thin and ragged 
around the ears. The hawk-like nose seemed hooked 
to meet the chin; the lips were slack, the mouth half- 
opened. 

Where once the Governor had been a model of neat- 
ness in his dress, the frock coat buttoned, the linen clean, 
he now sat in his shirt sleeves, the waistcoat open and 
showing the soiled shirt. His hands were stained with 
ink, and these, the only members of his body that yet 
appeared to retain their activity, were busy with a great 
pile of papers, — oblong, legal documents, that littered the 
table before him. Without a moment’s cessation, these 
hands of the Governor’s came and went among the 
papers, deft, nimble, dexterous. 

Magnus was sorting papers. From the heap upon his 
left hand he selected a document, opened it, glanced over 
it, then tied it carefully, and laid it away upon a second 
pile on his right hand. When all the pnpers were irt 
one pile, he reversed the process, taking from his right 
hand to place upon his left, then back from left to 
right again, then once more from right to left. He spoke 


A Story of California 623 

no word, he sat absolutely still, even his eyes did not 
move, only his hands, swift, nervous, agitated, seemed 
alive. 

“ Why, how are you. Governor ? ” said Presley, coming 
forward. Magnus turned slowly about and looked at 
him and at the hand in which he shook his own. 

“ Ah,^^ he said at length, “ Presley . . . yes.” 

Then his glance fell, and he looked aimlessly about 
upon the floor. 

Pve come to say good-bye, Governor,” continued 
Presley, “ Pm going away.” 

“ Going away . . . yes, why it’s Presley. Good- 

day, Presley.” 

“ Good-day, Governor. Pm going away. IVe come to 
say good-bye.” 

'' Good-bye ? ” Magnus bent his brows, what are you 
saying good-bye for ? ” 

“ Pm going away, sir.” 

The Governor did not answer. Staring at the ledge of 
the desk, he seemed, lost in thought. There was a long 
silence. Then, at length, Presley said : 

** How are you getting on. Governor ? ” 

Magnus looked up slowly. 

“Why it’s Presley,” he said. “How do you do, 
Presley.” 

“ Are you getting on all right, sir ? ” 

“Yes,” said Magnus after a while, ''yes, all right. I 
am going away. Pve come to say good-bye. No — ” 
He interrupted himself with a deprecatory smile, ''you 
said that, didn’t you ? ” 

“ Well, you are going away, too, your wife tells me.” 

“Yes, Pm going away. I can’t stay on ... ” 
he hesitated a long time, groping for the right word, “ I 
can’t stay on — on— -what’s the name of this place? ” 

“ Los Muertos,” put in Presley. 


624 


The Octopus 

** No, it isn’t. Yes, it is, too, that’s right, Los Muer- 
tos. I don’t know where my memory has gone to of 
late.” 

“ Well, I hope you will be better soon. Governor.” 

As Presley spoke the words, S. Behrman entered the 
room, and the Governor sprang up with unexpected 
agility and stood against the wall, drawing one long 
breath after another, watching the railroad agent with 
intent eyes. 

S. Behrman saluted both men affably and sat down 
near the desk, drawing the links of his heavy watch chain 
through his fat fingers. 

“ There wasn’t anybody outside when I knocked, but I 
heard your voice in here. Governor, so I came right in. I 
wanted to ask you. Governor, if my carpenters can begin 
work in here day after to-morrow. I want to take down 
that partition there, and throw this room and the next 
into one. I guess that will be O. K., won’t it? You’ll be 
out of here by then, won’t you ? ” 

There was no vagueness about Magnus’s speech or 
manner nov/. There was that same alertness in his 
demeanour that one sees in a tamed lion in the presence 
of its trainer. 

Yes, yes,” he said quickly, “ you can send your men 
here. I will be gone by to-morrow.” 

“ I don’t want to seem to hurry you. Governor.” 

** No, you will not hurry me. I am ready to go now.” 

“ Anything I can do for you. Governor ? ” 

“ Nothing.” 

“ Yes, there is. Governor,” insisted S. Behrman. “ I 
think now that all is over we ought to be good friends. 

I think I can do something for you. We still want an 
assistant in the local freight manager’s office. Now, 
what do you say to having a try at it? There’s a salary 
of fifty a month goes with it. I guess you must be in 


A Story of California 625 

need of money now, and there^s always the wife to sup- 
port ; what do you say ? Will you try the place ? ” 

Presley could only stare at the man in speechless 
wonder. What was he driving at? What reason was 
there back of this new move, and why should it be made 
thus openly and in his hearing ? An explanation occurred 
to him. Was this merely a pleasantry on the part of S. 
Behrman, a way of enjoying to the full his triumph; was 
he testing the completeness of his victory, trying to see 
just how far he could go, how far beneath his feet he 
could push his old-time enemy? 

''What do you say?’^ he repeated. "Will you try the 
place?” 

"You — you insist?'^ inquired the Governor. 

" Oh, Pm not insisting on anything,” cried S. Behr- 
man. " I’m offering you a place, that’s all. Will you 
take it?” 

" Yes, yes. I’ll take it.” 

" You’ll come over to our side? ” 

" Yes, I’ll come over.” 

"You’ll have to turn 'railroad,’ understand?” 

" I’ll turn railroad.” 

" Guess there may be times when you’ll have to take 
orders from me.” 

" I’ll take orders from you.” 

" You’ll have to be loyal to railroad, you know. No 
funny business.” 

" I’ll be loyal to the railroad.” 

" You would like the place then?” 

" Yes.” 

S. Behrman turned from Magnus, who at once resumed 
his seat and began again to sort his papers. 

" Well, Presley,” said the railroad agent : " I guess I 
won’t see you again.” 

" I hope not,” answered the other. 


626 The Octopus 

*^Tut, tut, Presley, you know you can^t make me 
angry/’ 

He put on his hat of varnished straw and wiped his 
fat forehead with his handkerchief. Of late, he had 
grown fatter than ever, and the linen vest, stamped with 
a multitude of interlocked horseshoes, strained tight its 
imitation pearl buttons across the great protuberant 
stomach. 

Presley looked at the man a moment before replying. 
But a few weeks ago he could not thus have faced the 
great enemy of the farmers without a gust of blind rage 
blowing tempestuous through all his bones. Now, how- 
ever, he found to his surprise that his fury had lapsed to 
a profound contempt, in which there was bitterness, but 
no truculence. He was tired, tired to death of the whole 
business. 

“ Yes,” he answered deliberately, I am going away. 
You have ruined this place for me. I couldn’t live here 
where I should have to see you, or the results of what 
you have done, whenever I stirred out of doors.” 

“ Nonsense, Presley,” answered the other, refusing to 
become angry. That’s foolishness, that kind of talk ; 
though, of course, I understand how you feel. I guess it 
was you, wasn’t it, who threw that bomb into mv house ?” 
It was.” 

*‘Well, that don’t show any common sense, Presley,” 
returned S. Behrman with perfect aplomb. “ What could 
you have gained by killing me ? ” 

Not so much probably as you have gained by killing 
Harran and Annixter. But that’s all passed now. You’re 
safe from me” The strangeness of this talk, the oddity 
of the situation burst upon him and he laughed aloud. 
“ It don’t seem as though you could be brought to book, 
S. Behrman, by anybody, or by any means, does it ? They 
can’t get at you through the courts, — the law can’t get 


627 


A Story of California 

you, Dyke’s pistol missed fire for just your benefit, and 
you even escaped Caraher’s six inches of plugged gas 
pipe. Just what are we going to do with you? ” 

“Best give it up. Pres, my boy,” returned the other. 
“ I guess there ain’t anything can touch me. Well, Mag- 
nus,” he said, turning once more to the Governor. “ Well, 
I’ll think over what you say, and let you know if I can 
get the place for you in a day or two. You see,” he 
added, “ you’re getting pretty old, Magnus Derrick.” 

Presley flung himself from the room, unable any longer 
to witness the depths into which Magnus had fallen. 
What other scenes of degradation were enacted in that 
room, how much further S. Behrman carried the humilia- 
tion, he did not know. He suddenly felt that the air of 
the office was choking him. 

He hurried up to what once had been his own room. 
On his way he could not but note that much of the house 
was in disarray, a great packing-up was in progress; 
trunks, half-full, stood in the hallways, crates and cases 
in a litter of straw encumbered the rooms. The servants 
came and went with armfuls of books^ ornaments, 
articles of clothing. 

Presley took from his room only a few manuscripts 
and note-books, and a small valise full of his personal 
effects ; at the doorway he paused and, holding the knob 
of the door in his hand, looked back into the room a very 
long time. 

He descended to the lower floor and entered the din- 
ing-room. Mrs. Derrick had disappeared. Presley stood 
for a long moment in front of the fireplace, looking 
about the room, remembering the scenes that he had 
witnessed there — the conference when Osterman had first 
suggested the fight for Railroad Commissioner and then 
later the attack on Lyman Derrick and the sudden revela- 
tion of that inconceivable treachery. But as he stood 


628 


The Octopus 

considering these things a door to his right opened and 
Hilma entered the room. 

Presley came forward, holding out his hand, all un- 
able to believe his eyes. It was a woman, grave, digni- 
fied, composed, who advanced to meet him. Hilma was 
dressed in black, the cut and fashion of the gown severe, 
almost monastic. All the little feminine and contradic- 
tory daintinesses were nowhere to be seen. Her statu- 
esque calm evenness of contour yet remained, but it was 
the calmness of great sorrow, of infinite resignation. 
Beautiful she still remained, but she was older. The seri- 
ousness of one who has gained the knowledge of the 
world — knowledge of its evil — seemed to envelope her. 
The calm gravity of a great suffering past, but not for- 
gotten, sat upon her. Not yet twenty-one, she exhibited 
the demeanour of a woman of forty. 

The one-time amplitude of her figure, the fulness of 
hip and shoulder, the great deep swell from waist to 
throat were gone. She had grown thinner and, in conse- 
quence, seemed unusually, almost unnaturally tall. Her 
neck was slender, the outline of her full lips and round 
chin was a little sharp ; her arms, those wonderful, beau- 
tiful arms of hers, were a little shrunken. But her eyes 
were as wide open as always, rimmed as ever by the thin, 
intensely black line of the lashes and her brown, fragrant 
hair was still thick, still, at times, glittered and corus- 
cated in the sun. When she spoke, it was with the old- 
time velvety huskiness of voice that Annixter had learned 
to love so well. 

Oh, it is you,” she said, giving him her hand. “ You 
were good to want to see me before you left. I hear that 
you are going away.” 

She sat down upon the sofa. 

“Yes,” Presley answered, drawing a chair near to her, 
“yes, I felt I could not stay — down here any longer. I 


A Story of California 


629 


am going to take a long ocean voyage. My ship sails in 
a few days. But you, Mrs. Annixter, what are you going 
to do ? Is there any way I can serve you ? ” 

No,” she answered, nothing. Papa is doing well. 
We are living here now.” 

“ You are well? ” 

She made a little helpless gesture with both her hands, 
smiling very sadly. 

As you see,” she answered. 

As he talked, Presley was looking at her intently. Her 
dignity was a new element in her character and the cer- 
tain slender effect of her figure, emphasised now by the 
long folds of the black gown she wore, carried it almost 
superbly. She conveyed something of the impression of 
a queen in exile. But she had lost none of her woman- 
liness ; rather, the contrary. Adversity had softened her, 
as well as deepened her. Presley saw that very clearly. 
Hilma had arrived now at her perfect maturity ; she had 
known great love and she had known great grief, and 
the woman that had awakened in her with her affection 
for Annixter had been strengthened and infinitely en- 
nobled by his death. 

What if things had been different? Thus, as he con- 
versed with her, Presley found himself wondering. Her 
sweetness, her beautiful gentleness, and tenderness were 
almost like palpable presences. It was almost as if a 
caress had been laid softly upon his cheek, as if a gentle 
hand closed upon his. Here, he knew, was sympathy; 
here, he knew, was an infinite capacity for love. 

Then suddenly all the tired heart of him went out to- 
wards her. A longing to give the best that was in him 
to the memory of her, to be strong and noble because of 
her, to reshape his purposeless, half- wasted life with her 
nobility and purity and gentleness for his inspiration 
leaped all at once within him, leaped and stood firm, 


630 The Octopus 

hardening to a resolve stronger than any he had evef 
known. 

For an instant he told himself that the suddenness of 
this new emotion must be evidence of its insincerity. He 
was perfectly well aware that his impulses were abrupt 
and of short duration. But he knew that this was not 
sudden. Without realising it, he had been from the first 
drawn to Hilma, and all through these last terrible days, 
since the time he had seen her at Los Muertos, just after 
the battle at the ditch, she had obtruded continually upon 
his thoughts. The sight of her to-day, more beautiful 
than ever, quiet, strong, reserved, had only brought mat- 
ters to a culmination. 

'' Are you,’’ he asked her, “ are you so unhappy, Hil- 
ma, that you can look forward to no more brightness in 
your life?” 

“ Unless I could forget — forget my husband,” she 
answered, how can I be happy ? I would rather be un- 
happy in remembering him than happy in forgetting 
him. He was my whole world, literally and truly. Noth- 
ing seemed to count before I knew him, and nothing can 
count for me now, after I have lost him.” 

“ You think now,” he answered, ‘‘ that in being happy 
again you would be disloyal to him. But you will find 
after a while — years from now — that it need not be so. 
The part of you that belonged to your husband can 
always keep him sacred, that part of you belongs to him 
and he to it. But you are young; you have all your life 
to live yet. Your sorrow need not be a burden to you. 
If you consider it as you shouldi — as you will some day, 
believe me — it will only be a great help to you. It will 
make you more noble, a truer woman, more generous.” 

I think I see,” she answered, '' and I never thought 
about it in that light before.” 

“ I want to help you,” he answered, ‘‘ as you have 


631 


A Story of California 

helped me. I want to be your friend, and above all things 
I do not want to see your life wasted. I am going away 
and it is quite possible I shall never see you again, but 
you will always be a help to me.’" 

I do not understand,” she answered, “but I know you 
mean to be very, very kind to me. Yes, I hope when you 
come back — if you ever do — you will still be that. I do 
not know why you should want to be so kind, unless — 
yes, of course — you were my husband’s dearest friend.” 

They talked a little longer, and at length Presley rose. 

“ I cannot bring myself to see Mrs. Derrick again,” he 
said. “ It would only serve to make her very unhappy. 
Will you explain that to her? I think she will under- 
stand.” 

“ Yes,” answered Hilma. “ Yes, I will.” 

There was a pause. There seemed to be nothing more 
for either of them to say. Presley held out his hand. 

“ Good-bye,” she said, as she gave him hers. 

He carried it to his lips. 

“ Good-bye,” he answered. “ Good-bye and may God 
bless you.” 

He turned away abruptly and left the room. 

But as he was quietly making his way out of the 
house, hoping to get to his horse unobserved, he came 
suddenly upon Mrs. Dyke and Sidney on the porch of 
the house. He had forgotten that since the affair at the 
ditch, Los Muertos had been a home to the engineer’s 
mother and daughter. 

“ And you, Mrs. Dyke,” he asked as he took her hand, 
“ in this break-up of everything, where do you go ? ” 

“ To the city,” she answered, “ to San Francisco. I 
have a sister there who will look after the little tad.” 

“ But you, how about yourself, Mrs. Dyke ? ” 

She answered him in a quiet voice, monotonous, ex- 
pressionless : 


632 


The Octopus 

** I am going to die very soon, Mr. Presley. There is 
no reason why I should live any longer. My son is in 
prison for life, everything is over for me, and I am tired, 
worn out.” 

“You mustn’t talk like that, Mrs. Dyke,” protested 
Presley, “ nonsense ; you will live long enough to see the 
little tad married.” He tried to be cheerful. But he knew 
his words lacked the ring of conviction. Death already 
overshadowed the face of the engineer’s mother. He felt 
that she spoke the truth, and as he stood there speaking 
to her for the last time, his arm about little Sidney’s 
shoulder, he knew that he was seeing the beginnings of 
the wreck of another family and that, like Hilda Hooven, 
another baby girl was to be started in life, through no 
fault of hers, fearfully handicapped, weighed down at the 
threshold of existence with a load of disgrace. Hilda 
Hooven and Sidney Dyke, what was to be their his- 
tories? the one, sister of an outcast; the other, daughter 
of a convict. And he thought of that other young girl, 
the little Honora Gerard, the heiress of millions, petted, 
loved, receiving adulation from all who came near to her, 
whose only care was to choose from among the multitude 
of pleasures that the world hastened to present to her 
consideration. 

“ Good-bye,” he said, holding out his hand. 

“ Good-bye.” 

“Good-bye, Sidney.” 

He kissed the little girl, clasped Mrs. Dyke’s hand a 
moment with his; then, slinging his satchel about his 
shoulders by the long strap with which it was provided, 
left the house, and mounting his horse rode away from 
Los Muertos never to return. 

Presley came out upon the County Road. At a little 
distance to his left he could see the group of buildings 
where once Broderson had lived. These were being re- 


633 


A Story of California 

modelled, at length, to suit the larger demands of the 
New Agriculture. A strange man came out by the road 
gate ; no doubt, the new proprietor. Presley turned away, 
hurrying northwards along the County Road by the 
mammoth watering-tank and the long wind-break of 
poplars. 

He came to Caraher’s place. There was no change 
here. The saloon had weathered the storm, indispen- 
sable to the new as well as to the old regime. The same 
dusty buggies and buckboards were tied under the shed, 
and as Presley hurried by he could distinguish Cara- 
her's voice, loud as ever, still proclaiming his creed of 
annihilation. 

Bonneville Presley avoided. He had no associations 
with the town. He turned aside from the road, and cross- 
ing the northwest corner of Los Muertos and the line of 
the railroad, turned back along the Upper Road till he 
came to the Long Trestle and Annixter’s, — Silence, deso- 
lation, abandonment. 

A vast stillness, profound, unbroken, brooded low over 
all the place. No living thing stirred. The rusted wind- 
mill on the skeleton-like tower of the artesian well was 
motionless; the great barn empty; the windows of the 
ranch house, cook house, and dairy boarded up. Nailed 
upon a tree near the broken gateway was a board, white 
painted, with stencilled letters, bearing the inscription: 

‘‘ Warning. ALL PERSONS FOUND TRESPASS- 
ING ON THESE PREMISES WILL BE PROSE- 
CUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE 
LAW. By order P. and S.W.R.R.’^ 

As he had planned, Presley reached the hills by the 
head waters of Broderson^s Creek late in the afternoon. 
Toilfully he climbed them, reached the highest crest, and 
turning about, looked long and for the last time at all 
the reach of the valley unrolled beneath him. The land 


634 The Octopus 

of the ranches opened out forever and forever under the 
stimulus of that measureless range of vision. The whole 
gigantic sweep of the San Joaquin expanded Titanic be- 
fore the eye of the mind, flagellated with heat, quivering 
and shimmering under the sun’s red eye. It was the 
season after the harvest, and the great earth, the mother, 
after its period of reproduction, its pains of labour, de- 
livered of the fruit of its loins, slept the sleep of exhaus- 
tion in the infinite repose of the colossus, benignant, eter- 
nal, strong, the nourisher of nations, the feeder of an 
entire world. 

And as Presley looked there came to him strong and 
true the sense and the significance of all the enigma of 
growth. He seemed for one instant to touch the explana- 
tion of existence. Men were nothings, mere animalculae, 
mere ephemerides that fluttered and fell and were for- 
gotten between dawn and dusk. Vanamee had said there 
was no death. But for one second Presley could go one 
step further. Men were naught, death was naught, life 
was naught ; force only existed — force that brought men 
into the world, force that crowded them out of it to make 
way for the succeeding generation, force that made the 
wheat grow, force that garnered it from the soil to give 
place to the succeeding crop. 

It was the mystery of creation, the stupendous miracle 
of re-creation ; the vast rhythm of the seasons, measured, 
alternative, the sun and the stars keeping time as the 
eternal symphony of reproduction swung in its tre- 
mendous cadences like the colossal pendulum of an al- 
mighty machine — primordial energy flung out from the 
hand of the Lord God himself, immortal, calm, infinitely 
strong. 

But as he stood thus looking down upon the great val- 
ley he was aware of the figure of a man, far in the dis- 
tance, moving steadily towards the Mission of San Juan, 


635 


A Story of California 

The man was hardly more than a dot, but there was 
something unmistakably familiar in his gait ; and be- 
sides this, Presley could fancy that he was hatless. He 
touched his pony with his spur. The man was Vanamee 
beyond all doubt, and a little later Presley, descending 
the maze of cow-paths and cattle-trails that led down to- 
wards the Broderson Creek, overtook his friend. 

Instantly Presley was aware of an immense change. 
Vanamee’s face was still that of an ascetic, still glowed 
with the rarefied intelligence of a young seer, a half- 
inspired shepherd-prophet of Hebraic legends; but the 
shadow of that great sadness which for so long had 
brooded over him was gone ; the grief that once he had 
fancied deathless was, indeed, dead, or rather swallowed 
up in a victorious joy that radiated like sunlight at dawn 
from the deep-set eyes, and the hollow, swarthy cheeks. 
They talked together till nearly sundown, but to Pres- 
ley’s questions as to the reasons for Vanamee’s happiness, 
the other would say nothing. Once only he allowed him- 
self to touch upon the subject. 

Death and grief are little things,” he said. ''They 
are transient. Life must be before death, and joy before 
grief. Else there are no such things as death or grief. 
These are only negatives. Life is positive. Death is only 
the absence of life, just as night is only the absence of 
day, and if this is so, there is no such thing as death. 
There is only life, and the suppression of life, that we, 
foolishly, say is death. ' Suppression,’ I say, not extinc- 
tion. I do not say that life returns. Life never departs. 
Life simply is. For certain seasons, it is hidden in the 
dark, but is that death, extinction, annihilation? I take 
it, thank God, that it is not. Does the grain of wheat, 
hidden for certain seasons in the dark, die? The grain 
we think is dead resumes again; but how? Not as one 
grain, but as twenty. So all life. Death is only real for 


636 


The Octopus 

all the detritus of the world, for all the sorrow, for all 
the injustice, for all the grief. Presley, the good never 
dies; evil dies, cruelty, oppression, selfishness, greed-— 
these die ; but nobility, but love, but sacrifice, but generos- 
ity, but truth, thank God for it, small as they are, difficult 
as it is to discover them — these live forever, these are eter- 
nal. You are all broken, all cast down by what you have 
seen in this valley, this hopeless struggle, this apparently 
hopeless despair. Well, the end is not yet. What is it 
that remains after all is over, after the dead are buried 
and the hearts are broken? Look at it all from the vast 
height of humanity — ^'the greatest good to the greatest 
numbers.’ What remains? Men perish, men are cor- 
rupted, hearts are rent asunder, but what remains un- 
touched, unassailable, undefiled? Try to find that, not 
only in this, but in every crisis of the world’s life, and 
you will find, if your view be large enough, that it is not 
evil, but good, that in the end remains.” 

There was a long pause. Presley, his mind full of 
new thoughts, held his peace, and Vanamee added at 
length : 

I believed Angele dead. I wept over her grave ; 
mourned for her as dead in corruption. She has come 
back to me, more beautiful than ever. Do not ask me 
any further. To put this story, this idyl, into words, 
would, for me, be a profanation. This must suffice you. 
Angele has returned to me, and I am happy. AdiosJ* 

He rose suddenly. The friends clasped each other’s 
hands. 

We shall probably never meet again, ''said Vanamee; 
** but if these are the last words I ever speak to you, listen 
to them, and remember them, because I know I speak the 
truth. Evil is short-lived. Never judge of the whole 
round of life by the mere segment you can see. The 
whole is, in the end, perfect.” 


637 


A Ston'^ of California 

Abruptly he took himself away. He was gone. Pres- 
ley, alone, thoughtful, his hands clasped behind him, 
passed on through the ranches — ^here teeming with 
ripened wheat — his face set from them forever. 

Not so Vanamee. For hours he roamed the country- 
side, now through the deserted cluster of buildings that 
had once been Annixter^s home ; now through the 
rustling and, as yet, uncut wheat of Quien Sabe ! now 
treading the slopes of the hills far to the north, and again 
following the winding courses of the streams. Thus he 
spent the night. 

At length, the day broke, resplendent, cloudless. The 
night was passed. There was all the sparkle and effer- 
vescence of joy in the crystal sunlight as the dawn ex- 
panded roseate, and at length flamed dazzling to the 
zenith when the sun moved over the edge of the world 
and looked down upon all the earth like the eye of God 
the Father. 

At the moment, Vanamee stood breast-deep in the 
wheat in a solitary corner of the Quien Sabe rancho. He 
turned eastward, facing the celestial glory of the day and 
sent his voiceless call far from him across the golden 
grain out towards the little valley of flowers. 

Swiftly the answer came. It advanced to meet him. 
The flowers of the Seed ranch were gone, dried and 
parched by the summer’s sun, shedding their seed by 
handfuls to be sown again and blossom yet another time. 
The Seed ranch was no longer royal with colour. The 
roses, the lilies, the carnations, the hyacinths, the pop- 
pies, the violets, the mignonette, all these had vanished, 
the little valley was without colour ; where once it had ex- 
haled the most delicious perfume, it was now odourless. 
Under the blinding light of the day it stretched to its 
hillsides, bare, brown, unlovely. The romance of the 
place had vanished, but with it had vanished the Vision. 


638 


The Octopus 


It was no longer a figment of his imagination, a creature 
of dreams that advanced to meet Vanamee. It was Real- 
ity — it was Angele in the flesh, vital, sane, material, who 
at last issued forth from the entrance of the little valley. 
Romance had vanished, but better than romance was 
here. Not a manifestation, not a dream, but her very 
self. The night was gone, but the sun had risen; the 
flowers had disappeared, but strong, vigorous, noble, the 
wheat had come. 

In the wheat he waited for her. He saw her coming. 
She was simply dressed. No fanciful wreath of tube- 
roses was about her head now, no strange garment of 
red and gold enveloped her now. It was no longer an 
ephemeral illusion of the night, evanescent, mystic, but 
a simple country girl coming to meet her lover. The 
vision of the night had been beautiful, but what was it 
compared to this? Reality was better than Romance. 
The simple honesty of a loving, trusting heart was better 
than a legend of flowers, an hallucination of the moon- 
light. She came nearer. Bathed in sunlight, he saw her 
face to face, saw her hair hanging in two straight plaits 
on either side of her face, saw the enchanting fulness of 
her lips, the strange, balancing movement of her head 
upon her slender neck. But now she v/as no longer 
asleep. The wonderful eyes, violet blue, heavy-lidded, 
with their perplexing, oriental slant towards the temples, 
were wide open and fixed upon his. 

From out the world of romance, out of the moonlight 
and the star sheen, out of the faint radiance of the lilies 
and the still air heavy with perfume, she had at last come 
to him. The moonlight, the flowers, and the dream were 
all vanished away. Angele was realised in the Wheat. 
She stood forth in the sunlight, a fact, and no longer a 
fancy. 

He ran forward to meet her and she held out her arms 


A Story of California 639 

to him. He caught her to him, and she, turning her face 
to his, kissed him on the mouth. 

“ I love you, I love you,’’ she murmured. 

Upon descending from his train at Port Costa, S. 
Behrman asked to be directed at once to where the bark 
“ Swanhilda ” was taking on grain. Though he had 
bought and greatly enlarged his new elevator at this port, 
he had never seen it. The work had been carried on 
through agents, S. Behrman having far too many and 
more pressing occupations to demand his presence and 
attention. Now, however, he was to see the concrete 
evidence of his success for the first time. 

He picked his way across the railroad tracks to the 
line of warehouses that bordered the docks, numbered 
with enormous Roman numerals and full of grain in 
bags. 

The sight of these bags of grain put him in mind of 
the fact that among all the other shippers he was prac- 
tically alone in his way of handling his wheat. They 
handled the grain in bags; he, however, preferred it in 
the bulk. Bags were sometimes four cents apiece, and 
he had decided to build his elevator and bulk his grain 
therein, rather than to incur this expense. Only a small 
part of his wheat — that on Number Three division — 
had been sacked. All the rest, practically two-thirds 
of the entire harvest of Los Muertos, now found 
itself warehoused in his enormous elevator at Port 
Costa. 

To a certain degree it had been the desire of observing 
the working of his system of handling the wheat in bulk 
that had drawn S. Behrman to Port Costa. But the more 
powerful motive had been curiosity, not to say down- 
right sentiment. So long had he planned for this day of 
triumph, so eagerly had he looked forward to it, that 


640 The Octopus 

now, when it had come, he wished to enjoy it to its full- 
est extent, wished to miss no feature of the disposal of 
the crop. He had watched it harvested, he had watched 
it hauled to the railway, and now would watch it as it 
poured into the hold of the ship, would even watch the 
ship as she cleared and got under way. 

He passed through the warehouses and came out upon 
the dock that ran parallel with the shore of the bay. A 
great quantity of shipping was in view, barques for the 
most part. Cape Horners, great, deep sea tramps, Hvhose 
iron-shod forefeet had parted every ocean the world 
round from Rangoon to Rio Janeiro, and from Mel- 
bourne to Christiania. Some were "still in the stream, 
loaded with wheat to the Plimsoll mark, ready to depart 
with the next tide. But many others laid their great 
flanks alongside the docks and at that moment were 
being filled by derrick and crane with thousands upon 
thousands of bags of wheat. The scene was brisk; the 
cranes creaked and swung incessantly with a rattle of 
chains ; stevedores and wharfingers toiled and perspired ; 
boatswains and dock-masters shouted orders, drays rum- 
bled, the water lapped at the piles; a group of sailors, 
painting the flanks of one of the great ships, raised an 
occasional chanty; the trade wind sang asolian in the 
cordages, filling the air with the nimble taint of salt. 
All around were the noises of ships and the feel and 
flavor of the sea. 

S. Behrman soon discovered his elevator. It was the 
largest structure discernible, and upon its red roof, in 
enormous white letters, was his own name. Thither, be- 
tween piles of grain bags, halted drays, crates and boxes 
of merchandise, with an occasional pyramid of salmon 
cases, S. Behrman took his way. Cabled to the dock, 
close under his elevator, lay a great ship with lofty masts 
and great spars. Her stern was toward him as he ap- 


A Story of California 641 

preached, and upon it, in raised golden letters, he could 
read the words “ Swanhilda — Liverpool.” 

He went aboard by a very steep gangway and found 
the mate on the quarter deck. S. Behrman introduced 
himself. 

** Well,” he added, how are you getting on?” 

“Very fairly, sir,” returned the mate, who was an 
Englishman. “We’ll have her all snugged down tight by 
this time, day after to-morrow. Ifs a great saving of 
time shunting the stuff in her like that, and three men 
can do the work of seven.” 

“ I’ll have a look ’round, I believe,” returned S. Behr- 
man. 

“ Right — oh,” answered the mate with a nod. 

S. Behrman went forward to the hatch that opened 
down into the vast hold of the ship. A great iron chute 
connected this hatch with the elevator, and through it was 
rushing a veritable cataract of wheat. 

It came from some gigantic bin within the elevator 
itself, rushing down the confines of the chute to plunge 
into the roomy, gloomy interior of the hold with an in- 
cessant, metallic roar, persistent, steady, inevitable. No 
men were in sight. The place was deserted. No human 
agency seemed to be back of the movement of the wheat. 
Rather, the grain seemed impelled with a force of its own, 
a resistless, huge force, eager, vivid, impatient for the 
sea. 

S. Behrman stood watching, his ears deafened with the 
roar of the hard grains against the metallic lining of 
the chute. He put his hand once into the rushing tide, 
and the contact rasped the flesh of his fingers and 
like an undertow drew his hand after it in its impetuous 
dash. 

Cautiously he peered down into the hold. A musty 
odour rose to his nostrils, the vigorous, pungent aroma 


41 


642 The Octopus 

of the raw cereal. It was dark. He could see nothing; 
but all about and over the opening of the hatch the air 
was full of a fine, impalpable dust that blinded the eyes 
and choked the throat and nostrils. 

As his eyes became used to the shadows of the cavern 
below him, he began to distinguish the grey mass of the 
wheat, a great expanse, almost liquid in its texture, 
which, as the cataract from above plunged into it, moved 
and shifted in long, slow eddies. As he stood there, this 
cataract on a sudden increased in volume. He turned 
about, casting his eyes upward toward the elevator to 
discover the cause. His foot caught in a coil of rope, and 
he fell headforemost into the hold. 

The fall was a long one and he struck the surface of 
the wheat with the sodden impact of a bundle of damp 
clothes. For the moment he was stunned. All the breath 
was driven from his body. He could neither move nor 
cry out. But, by degrees, his wits steadied themselves 
and his breath returned to him. He looked about and 
above him. The daylight in the hold was dimmed and 
clouded by the thick, chaff-dust thrown off by the pour 
of grain, and even this dimness dwindled to twilight at a 
short distance from the opening of the hatch, while the 
remotest quarters were lost in impenetrable blackness. 
He got upon his feet only to find that he sunk ankle deep 
in the loose packed mass underfoot. 

“ Hell,’* he muttered, here’s a fix.** 

Directly underneath the chute, the wheat, as it poured 
in, raised itself in a conical mound, but from the sides 
of this mound it shunted away incessantly in thick lay- 
ers, flowing in all directions with the nimbleness of water. 
Even as S. Behrman spoke, a wave of grain poured 
around his legs and rose rapidly to the level of his knees. 
He stepped quickly back. To stay near the chute would 
soon bury him to the waist. 


643 


A Story of California 

No doubt, there was some other exit from the hold, 
some companion ladder that led up to the deck. He 
scuffled and waded across the wheat, groping in the 
dark with outstretched hands. With every inhalation he 
choked, filling his mouth and nostrils more with dust than 
with air. At times he could not breathe at all, but gagged 
and gasped, his lips distended. But search as he would, 
he could find no outlet to the hold, no stairway, no com- 
panion ladder. Again and again, staggering along in the 
black darkness, he bruised his knuckles and forehead 
against the iron sides of the ship. He gave up the at- 
tempt to find any interior means of escape and returned 
laboriously to the space under the open hatchway. 
Already he could see that the level of the wheat was 
raised. 

God,'' he said, “ this isn't going to do at all." He 
uttered a great shout. “ Hello, on deck there, somebody. 
For God's sake." 

The steady, metallic roar of the pouring wheat 
drowned out his voice. He could scarcely hear it himself 
above the rush of the cataract. Besides this, he found it 
impossible to stay under the hatch. The flying grains of 
wheat, spattering as they fell, stung his face like wind- 
driven particles of ice. It was a veritable torture; his 
hands smarted with it. Once he was all but blinded. 
Furthermore, the succeeding waves of wheat, rolling 
from the mound under the chute, beat him back, swirling 
and dashing against his legs and knees, mounting 
swiftly higher, carrying him off his feet. 

Once more he retreated, drawing back from beneath 
the hatch. He stood still for a moment and shouted 
again. It was in vain. His voice returned upon him, 
unable to penetrate the thunder of the chute, and horri- 
fied, he discovered that so soon as he stood motionless 
upon the wheat, he sank into it. Before he knew it, he 


644 


The Octopus 


was knee-deep again, and a long swirl of grain sweeping 
outward from the ever-breaking, ever-reforming pyramid 
below the chute^ poured around his thighs, immobolising 
him. 

A frenzy of terror suddenly leaped to life within him. 
The horror of death, the Fear of The Trap, shook him 
like a dry reed. Shouting, he tore himself free of the 
wheat and once more scrambled and struggled towards 
the hatchway. He stumbled as he reached it and fell di- 
rectly beneath the pour. Like a storm of small shot, mer- 
cilessly, pitilessly, the unnumbered multitude of hurtling 
grains flagellated and beat and tore his flesh. Blood 
streamed from his forehead and, thickening with the 
powder-like chaff-dust, blinded his eyes. He struggled 
to his feet once more. An avalanche from the cone of 
wheat buried him to his thighs. He was forced back and 
back and back, beating the air, falling, rising, howling 
for aid. He could no longer see ; his eyes, crammed with 
dust, smarted as if transfixed with needles whenever he 
opened them. His mouth was full of the dust, his lips 
were dry with it; thirst tortured him, while his outcries 
choked and gagged in his rasped throat. 

And all the while without stop, incessantly, inexorably, 
the wheat, as if moving with a force all its own, shot 
downward in a prolonged roar, persistent, steady, inevi- 
table. 

He retreated to a far corner of the hold and sat down 
with his back against the iron hull of the ship and tried 
to collect his thoughts, to calm himself. Surely there 
must be some way of escape; surely he was not to die 
like this, die in this dreadful substance that was neither 
solid nor fluid. What was he to do? How make himself 
heard ? 

But even as he thought about this, the cone under the 
chute broke again and sent a great layer of grain rippling 


A Story of California 645 

and tumbling toward him. It reached him where he sat 
and buried his hand and one foot. 

He sprang up trembling and made for another corner. 

By God,” he cried, by God, I must think of some- 
thing pretty quick ! ” 

Once more the level of the wheat rose and the grains 
began piling deeper about him. Once more he retreated. 
Once more he crawled staggering to the foot of the cata- 
ract, screaming till his ears sang and his eyeballs strained 
in their sockets, and once more the relentless tide drove 
him back. 

Then began that terrible dance of death; the man 
dodging, doubling, squirming, hunted from one corner to 
another, the wheat slowly, inexorably flowing, rising, 
spreading to every angle, to every nook and cranny. It 
reached his middle. Furious and with bleeding hands 
and broken nails, he dug his way out to fall backward, 
all but exhausted, gasping for breath in the dust- 
thickened air. Roused again by the slow advance of the 
tide, he leaped up and stumbled away, blinded with the 
agony in his eyes, only to crash against the metal hull 
of the vessel. He turned about, the blood streaming from 
his face, and paused to collect his senses, and with a 
rush, another wave swirled about his ankles and knees. 
Exhaustion grew upon him. To stand still meant to sink ; 
to lie or sit meant to be buried the quicker ; and all this 
in the dark, all this in an air that could scarcely be 
breathed, all this while he fought an enemy that could 
not be gripped, toiling in a sea that could not be stayed. 

Guided by the sound of the falling wheat, S. Behrman 
crawled on hands and knees toward the hatchway. Once 
more he raised his voice in a shout for help. His bleeding 
throat and raw, parched lips refused to utter but a wheez- 
ing moan. Once more he tried to look toward the one 
patch of faint light above him. His eye-lids, clogged with 


646 


The Octopus 


chaff, could no longer open. The Wheat poured about 
his waist as he raised himself upon his knees. 

Reason fled. Deafened with the roar of the grain, 
blinded and made dumb with its chaff, he threw himself 
forward with clutching fingers, rolling upon his back, and 
lay there, moving feebly, the head rolling from side to 
side. The Wheat, leaping continuously from the chute, 
poured around him. It filled the pockets of the coat, it 
crept up the sleeves and trouser legs, it covered the 
great, protuberant stomach, it ran at last in rivulets 
into the distended, gasping mouth. It covered the face. 

Upon the surface of the Wheat, under the chute, noth- 
ing moved but the Wheat itself. There was no sign of 
life. Then, for an instant, the surface stirred. A hand, 
fat, with short fingers and swollen veins, reached up, 
clutching, then fell limp and prone. In another instant it 
was covered. In the hold of the Swanhilda ’’ there was 
no movement but the widening ripples that spread flow- 
ing from the ever-breaking, ever-reforming cone; no 
sound, but the rushing of the Wheat that continued to 
plunge incessantly from the iron chute in a prolonged 
roar, persistent, steady, inevitable. 


CONCLUSION 


The ''Swanhilda” cast off from the docks at Port Costa 
two days after Presley had left Bonneville and the 
ranches and made her way up to San Francisco, anchor- 
ing in the stream off the City front. A few hours after 
her arrival, Presley, waiting at his club, received a de- 
spatch from Cedarquist to the effect that she would clear 
early the next morning and that he must be aboard of 
her before midnight. 

He sent his trunks aboard and at once hurried to 
CedarquisFs office to say good-bye. He found the manu- 
facturer in excellent spirits. 

“What do you think of Lyman Derrick now, Pres- 
ley ? ’’ he said, when Presley had sat down. “ He’s in the 
new politics with a vengeance, isn’t he? And our own 
dear Railroad openly acknowledges him as their candi- 
date. You’ve heard of his canvass.” 

“ Yes, yes,” answered Presley. “ Well, he knows his 
business best.” 

But Cedarquist was full of another idea : his new ven- 
ture — the organizing of a line of clipper wheat ships for 
Pacific and Oriental trade — was prospering. 

“ The * Swanhilda ’ is the mother of the fleet, Pres. I 
had to buy her, but the keel of her sister ship will be laid 
by the time she discharges at Calcutta. We’ll carry our 
wheat into Asia yet. The Anglo-Saxon started from there 
at the beginning of everything and it’s manifest destiny 
that he must circle the globe and fetch up where he be- 
gan his march. You are up with procession. Pres, going 
to India this way in a wheat ship that flies American 


648 


The Octopus 

colours. By the way, do you know where the money is to 
come from to build the sister ship of the ‘ Swanhilda ' ? 
From the sale of the plant and scrap iron of the Atlas 
Works. Yes, Fve given it up definitely, that business. 
The people here would not back me up. But Tm working 
off on this new line now. It may break me, but we’ll try 
it on. You know the ' Million Dollar Fair ’ was formally 
opened yesterday. There is,” he added with a wink, 
Midway Pleasance in connection with the thing. Mrs. 
Cedarquist and our friend Hartrath ‘ got up a subscrip- 
tion’ to construct a figure of California — heroic size — • 
out of dried apricots. I assure you,” he remarked with 
prodigious gravity, ''it is a real work of art and quite 
a ' feature ’ of the Fair. Well, good luck to you. Pro. 
Write to me from Honolulu, and hon voyage. My re- 
spects to the hungry Hindoo. Tell him ‘ we’re coming. 
Father Abraham, a hundred thousand more.’ Tell the 
men of the East to look out for the men of the West. 
The irrepressible Yank is knocking at the doors of their 
temples and he will want to sell ’em carpet-sweepers for 
their harems and electric light plants for their temple 
shrines. Good-bye to you.” 

" Good-bye, sir.” 

" Get fat yourself while you’re about it, Presley,” he 
observed, as the two stood up and shook hands. 

" There shouldn’t be any lack of food on a wheat ship. 
Bread enough, surely.” 

"Little monotonous, though. 'Man cannot live by 
bread alone.’ Well, you’re really off. Good-bye.” 

"Good-bye, sir.” 

And as Presley issued from the building and stepped 
out into the street, he was abruptly aware of a great 
wagon shrouded in white cloth, inside of which a bass 
drum was being furiously beaten. On the cloth, in great 
letters, were the words : 


A Story of California 649 

** Vote for Lyman Derrick, Regular Republican Nomi- 
nee for Governor of California.” 

*!«***♦<» 

The “ Swanhilda ” lifted and rolled slowly, majestically 
on the ground swell of the Pacific, the water hissing and 
boiling under her forefoot, her cordage vibrating and 
droning in the steady rush of the trade winds. It was 
drawing towards evening and her lights had just been 
set. The master passed Presley, who was leaning over 
the rail smoking a cigarette, and paused long enough to 
remark : 

“ The land yonder, if you can make it out, is Point 
Gordo, and if you were to draw a line from our position 
now through that point and carry it on about a hundred 
miles further, it would just about cross Tulare County 
not very far from where you used to live.” 

I see,” answered Presley, “ 1 see. Thanks. I am glad 
to know that.” 

The master passed on, and Presley, going up to the 
quarter deck, looked long and earnestly at the faint line 
of mountains that showed vague and bluish above the 
waste of tumbling water. 

Those were the mountains of the Coast range and be- 
yond them was what once had been his home. Bonne- 
ville was there, and Guadalajara and Los Muertos and 
Quien Sabe, the Mission of San Juan, the Seed ranch, 
Annixter’s desolated home and Dyke’s ruined hop-fields. 

Well, it was all over now, that terrible drama through 
which he had lived. Already it was far distant from him ; 
but once again it rose in his memory, portentous, sombre, 
ineffaceable. He passed it all in review from the day of 
his first meeting with Vanamee to the day of his parting 
with Hilma. He saw it all — the great sweep of country 
opening to view from the summit of the hills at the head 
waters of Broderson’s Creek ; the barn dance at Annix- 


650 


The Octopus 

ter's, the harness room with its jam of furious men; the 
quiet garden of the Mission; Dyke’s house, his flight 
upon the engine, his brave fight in the chaparral; Ly- 
man Derrick at bay in the dining-room of the ranch 
house ; the rabbit drive ; the fight at the irrigating ditch, 
the shouting mob in the Bonneville Opera House. 

The drama was over. The fight of Ranch and Rail- 
road had been wrought out to its dreadful close. It was 
true, as Shelgrim had said, that forces rather than men 
had locked horns in that struggle, but for all that the 
men of the Ranch and not the men of the Railroad had 
suffered. Into the prosperous valley, into the quiet com- 
munity of farmers, that galloping monster, that terror 
of steel and steam had burst, shooting athwart the hori- 
zons, flinging the echo of its thunder over all the ranches 
of the valley, leaving blood and destruction in its path. 

Yes, the Railroad had prevailed. The ranches had been 
seized in the tentacles of the octopus ; the iniquitous bur- 
den of extortionate freight rates had been imposed like a 
yoke of iron. The monster had killed Harran, had killed 
Osterman, had killed Broderson, had killed Hooven. It 
had beggared Magnus and had driven him to a state of 
semi-insanity after he had wrecked his honour in the vain 
attempt to do evil that good might come. It had enticed 
Lyman into its toils to pluck from him his manhood and 
his honesty, corrupting him and poisoning him beyond 
redemption; it had hounded Dyke from his legitimate 
employment and had made of him a highwayman and 
criminal. It had cast forth Mrs. Hooven to starve to 
death upon the City streets. It had driven Minna to pros- 
titution. It had slain Annixter at the very moment when 
painfully and manfully he had at last achieved his own 
salvation and stood forth resolved to do right, to act un- 
selfishly and to live for others. It had widowed Hilma 
in the very dawn of her happiness. It had killed the very 


A Story of California 


651 

babe within the mother’s womb, strangling life ere yet it 
had been born, stamping out the spark ordained by God 
to burn through all eternity. 

What then was left? Was there no hope, no outlook for 
the future, no rift in the black curtain, no glimmer 
through the night? Was good to be thus overthrown? 
Was evil thus to be strong and to prevail? Was nothing 
left? 

Then suddenly Vanamee’s words came back to his 
mind. What was the larger view, what contributed the 
greatest good to the greatest numbers ? What was the 
full round of the circle whose segment only he beheld? 
In the end, the ultimate, final end of all, what was left ? 
Yes, good issued from this crisis, untouched, unassail- 
able, undefiled. 

Men — motes in the sunshine — perished, were shot 
down in the very noon of life, hearts were broken, little 
children started in life lamentably handicapped; young 
girls were brought to a life of shame; old women died 
in the heart of life for lack of food. In that little, isolated 
group of human insects, misery, death, and anguish spun 
like a wheel of fire. 

But the Wheat remained. Untouched, unassailable, 
undefiled, that mighty world-force, that nourisher of na- 
tions, wrapped in Nirvanic calm, indifferent to the human 
swarm, gigantic, resistless, moved onward in its ap- 
pointed grooves. Through the welter of blood at the irri- 
gation ditch, through the sham charity and shallow phi- 
lanthropy of famine relief committees, the great harvest 
of Los Muertos rolled like a flood from the Sierras to 
the Himalayas to feed thousands of starving scarecrows 
on the barren plains of India. 

Falseness dies; injustice and oppression in the end 
of everything fade and vanish away. Greed, cruelty, sel- 
fishness, and inhumanity are short-lived; the individual 


suffers, but the race goes on. Annixter dies, but in a far 
distant corner of the world a thousand lives are saved. 
The larger view always and through all shams, all 
wickednesses, discovers the Truth that will, in the end, 
prevail, and all things, surely, inevitably, resistlessly work 
together for good. 




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